Abstract
IN this work, the author, who is research assistant in economic botany at Harvard University, deals in an interesting manner with the more important useful plants and plant products of the world from the point of view of their history, cultivation, preparation and utilization. He shows how the three great necessities of life—food, clothing and shelter—as well as a large number of other useful products, are supplied in great measure by plants. Economic plants have been intimately bound up with human existence and have not only played an important part in the everyday life of mankind but have also had a profound influence on the course of history and civilization. Spice plants and the early spice trade afford evidence of this.
Economic Botany:
a Textbook of Useful Plants and Plant Products. By Albert F. Hill. (McGraw-Hill Publications in the Agricultural and Botanical Sciences.) Pp. x + 592. (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1937.) 24s.
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Economic Botany. Nature 141, 628 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141628a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141628a0