PLANT STUDY IN SCHOOL, FIELD, AND GARDEN.*
THE authors of this text-book are respectively Principal and Head of the Natural Science Department of the Walthamstow Technical Institute. It is a great pleasure to bestow un- reserved praise on the result of their joint authorship. The book is really designed for use with a class of youthful students, but it may be recommended also for use by the amateur botanist who desires to gain an insight into the structures and vital processes of flowering plants. We can endorse the claims which the authors make in the preface on behalf of their work. Catalogues of difficult terms are avoided as far as possible, and stress is laid on under- standing vital processes, such as the germination of seeds, the work of the stem and root, assimilation arid transpiration. Numerous experiments are suggested, more perhaps than the ordinary student can be expected to undertake. At the end of each chapter will be found summaries of the teaching and suggestions for practical exercises. The chapters on the mechanism by which plants secure the fertilisation of their flowers and the dispersal of their seeds are exceedingly clear. In some of the chapters, like that on the formation of chlorophyll arid starch, there is a little chemistry, but not more than the understanding of the subject requires. One of the features of the book that must * Plant Study in School, Field, and Garden. By Joseph S. Bridges B.Se.(Lond.), add Arthur J. Diets, B.Scs.(Lorid.) London Ralph, H011artd; and Co. Ps. Gd. nut. .1 ,not be overlooked is the figures, of which there are about .six. hundred. These drawings by the authors are original and lucid. They are models of what the Student of ,botany should aim at making for himself. The second part of the book deals with the formation and nature of various soils, and the last part contains a little instruction in practical gardening. The real merit of the work lies in the clearness with which the complicated structures of plants and the pro-
• ceases of plant life are explained and summarised. The results of environment on the external appearance and internal formation of plants are carefully explained. The student is made to think for himself, to consider in his own way what he observes in plants, and to remember the awful struggle for ,life which rages in the plant world, where plants have to fit themselves to the position in which they are or to perish and .produce no seed.
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