he process of establishing supremacy of
individuals is prolonged, to the detriment even of those which are
ultimately victorious. The length is drawn out disproportionately to
the diameter, and all the trees remain weak.

Experience has proved that plantations where space is given for proper
growth in their earlier years, yield more and better wood than do
Nature's dense sowings. Two records are added in confirmation of this
statement, and many others could be given:

1. A pine plantation of twelve acres was made, one half by sowing, the
other half by planting at proper distances. In twenty-four years
the first section had yielded, including the material obtained in
thinnings, 1,998 cubic feet, and the latter, 3,495 cubic feet of wood.
The thinnings had been made, when appearing necessary, at ten, fifteen
and eighteen years in the planted section, yielding altogether ten and
three-quarter cords of round firewood and seven cords of brush; and at
eight, ten and twenty years in the sowed section, with a yield of only
three and one-fifth cords of round firewood at the last thinning and
seven and four-fifths cords of brush wood.

2. A spruce growth seeded after thirty-three years was still so dense
as to be impenetrable, with scarcely any increase, and the trees were
covered with lichens. It was then thinned out when thirty-five, and
again when forty-two years old. The appearance greatly improved,
and the accretion in seven years after thinning showed 160 per cent.
increase, or more than 26 per cent. every year.

The density of growth which will give the best results in all
directions depends upon the kind of timber and soil conditions.

--_B. E. Fernow._

Washington, D. C.

Book Reviews.

Gray's Elements of Botany.

Fifty-one years ago, Asa Gray, then only twenty-six years of age,
published a treatise on botany adapted to the use of schools and
colleges. It was entitled "The Elements of Botany." Its method of
arrangement was so admirably adapted to its purpose, and the treatment
of all the subjects so mature and thorough, that the work served as a
model for a large work which soon followed,--the well-known Botanical
Text-book, and the same general plan has been followed in all the
editions of the latter treatise. About twenty-five years after the
appearance of the Elements, Dr. Gray prepared a more elementary work
for the use of schools, since the Text-book had become rather too
advanced and exhaustive