Abstract
THE author defines his aims in the following words (p. 7):—“The numerous questions which young people ask about plants are best answered by themselves. … To put them in the way of doing this so far as possible is the object of this book.” In accordance with this plan, the apparatus used is of a rough and home-made description, constructed of fruit jars, lamp chimneys, clothes' pegs, india-rubber bands, and sealing-wax. Much ingenuity is shown in the design of apparatus so put together. Whether a sufficient degree of stability is always obtainable may perhaps be questioned, but from the author's point of view the advantages of his method certainly outweigh any such shortcomings. One great merit in the book is the insistence on the necessity of control experiments, which are especially needful with rough methods. The book is divided into chapters headed “The Work of Roots”—of leaves, of stems, &c.—ending, up with a chapter on “Making New Kinds of Plants,” which is a statement of what breeders and experimenters on variability have done rather than instructions for the making of such experiments.
Experiments with Plants.
By Dr. W. J. V. Osterhout. Pp. x + 492; illustrated. (New York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1905.) Price 5s. net.
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Experiments with Plants . Nature 72, 364 (1905). https://doi.org/10.1038/072364a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/072364a0