286 
classification must prove invaluable and alone worth many times the 
price of the book. So far as known to the writer, there is no other 
book in any modern language in which the student just commencing 
the study of fungi can find so good a resume of what is absolutely 
essential for him to know. If he masters this one book he will have 
laid an excellent foundation for future studies of special monographs, 
and of that vaster bool#never to be included in any monograph. 
(2) Dr. Kirchner’s book occupies an entirely different field from the 
preceding. The plan is also quite unlike that followed in the hand- 
* 
books of Frank and Sorauer. In fact the book is unique in the litera¬ 
ture of plant diseases. In his preface the author regrets that knowl¬ 
edge of plant diseases and injuries is so little diffused among practical 
men, the very class who need it, and ascribes this in part to the fact 
that their study leads at once into the most difficult departments of 
two sciences, botany and zoology, and requires more time and more 
special knowledge than is at their command. 
By keeping constantly in view the needs of farmers and gardeners, 
the author has succeeded in overcoming many of the difficulties and 
making a very practical, useful book. Theoretical considerations and 
technical expressions are excluded as far as possible, and a commenda¬ 
ble effort has been made to combiife simplicity with perspicuity and 
accuracy. In a book of this character it is of course impossible to avoid 
errors, and some have crept in, but there are not enough to seriously 
injure its usefulness. No claim is made to completeness, but never¬ 
theless a great amount of interesting and valuable information has 
been well digested and put together in a very accessible form, and the 
general accuracy of statement is especially commendable. It is a book 
to save the busy man’s time by answering as quickly as possible the fol¬ 
lowing questions: (1) What ails the plant? (2) How can the trouble be 
remedied? The author has not confined himself to prominent diseases 
or to those due solely to vegetable parasites, but lias made a praise¬ 
worthy effort to mention all, and the reader is therefore likely to find 
a paragraph touching any disease or injury on which he may wish 
enlightenment, provided, of course, it is one that occurs in middle or 
northern Europe. 
The book is divided into two parts, the first 368 pages being an 
artificial key to the diseases and injuries of agricultural plants, arranged 
under the following heads: Cereals 14, edible Leguminosie 6, grasses 
20F, forage plants 25 + , roots 4, commercial plants 12, vegetables 
and kitchen plants 27, fruit trees 11, berries 6, and the vine 1—total 
126. The diseases attacking these 126 plants are classified according 
to gross appearances and according to the parts they attack. For 
example, 17 pages are devoted to the diseases of Vitis vinifera , arranged 
in the following way: I. Diseases and injuries of the leaves, II. dis¬ 
eases and injuries of the buds and shoots, III. diseases and injuries of 
the branches, IV. diseases and injuries of the old wood, V. diseases 
