Abstract
THE second volume of Dr. Bailey's “Cvclopedia” deals with the field crops of North America, and opens with some interesting chapters'on the economic side of plant life in general-the control of diseases, the principles of plant breeding and introduction, seeding, and the management and preservation of the crop. Though the plants dealt with in the main section of the book include the staple farm crops of this country, one cannot but be struck with the enormous diversity of the production of the United States. Its agriculture started practically on the basis of our own, with crops characteristic of temperate and humid climates, cotton being the only early addition on a large scale; but as population spread south and west, all the products of the Mediterranean region became included, and latterly the addition of the Sandwich Islands, Cuba, and Porto Rico to its territory has brought tropical and subtropical plants into the United States list. The valuable work done by the plant introduction division of the United States Department of Agriculture finds ample recognition here; the navel orange, Egyptian strains of cotton, with the date palm, the olive, and durum wheat for the arid regions, are striking examples of successful acclimatisation, and elaborate attempts are now being made to introduce tea.
Cyclopedia of American Agriculture.
Edited by L. H. Bailey. Vol. ii., Crops. Pp. xvi + 690. (New York: The Macmillan Co.; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1907.) Price 21s. net.
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Cyclopedia of American Agriculture . Nature 77, 292 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/077292a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/077292a0