(1) A Text-book of Grasses, with Especial Reference to the Economic Species of the United States (2) A Manual of Weeds

Abstract

(1). ALTHOUGH we are disposed to welcome any innovation in the planning of textbooks of applied science, we cannot congratulate the author of the work under review on the scheme which he has adopted. He divides his book into two parts, and treats first of economic agrostology, and subsequently, of systematic agrostology. As a consequence, the student who begins the book at the beginning reads of a considerable number of grasses, mostly called by their popular names, and if he be a novice, he must pause at each page to look up, in the systematic part, what these names signify. Moreover, whether he be novice or adept, he will find but little information of real value in the economic section. He will discover how much corn and wheat and barley and other cereals is grown in the United States, and how much each of these crops is worth; that America eats wheaten bread, and that the inhabitants of the “Old World” subsist on wheat, corn, and rice. Beside some useful general information, he will find a chapter on lawns, and a page or two on sand-binding grasses.

(1) A Text-book of Grasses, with Especial Reference to the Economic Species of the United States.

By Prof. A. S. Hitchcock. Pp. xvii + 276. (New York: The Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1914.) Price 6s. 6d. net.

(2) A Manual of Weeds.

By A. E. Georgia. Pp. xi + 593. (New York: The Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1914.) Price 8s. 6d. net.