Agricultural Botany. By J. Percival, M.A. (Duckworth and Co. 7s.
6d.)—This text-book, with its useful drawings, will be of assistance to the farmer who has had a good education, but not to the farmer most of us have in our minds, who never looks at a book. These men accept the results of science, a new wheat or a new grass, but as to bothering themselves with botany, they think they know better. Still, the class of practical farmers is not confined to them, and the men whom Professor Percival really aims to instruct are those who want light thrown on the why and the wherefore. These men, we must remember, farm on a different principle to the more familiar type, who farm on habit and custom and experience, aided by an intimate know- ledge of their neighbours and their labourers. The chapters on weeds and grasses are most interesting, but we presume the author's lectures are couched in less technical language. The plainer and homelier the language the wider will be the circle appealed to. A really useful agricultural botany has yet to be written.
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