Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 32.djvu/141

Rh continent, and the early voyages before the settlement of North America. The second covers the period of colonization down to the extinction of the French power east of the Mississippi. The third and concluding volume is devoted to the "Making of the American Nation," by which term the author means "the process by which the loosely-connected American communities outgrew their colonial condition of social and political life, and developed into a nation." This process, Mr. Oilman holds, was not completed till after the civil war and the reconstruction of the Union, since it was not until then that the people became one in sentiment in all parts of the land. Throughout his work the author has avoided, for the most part, the details of battles and of political intrigues, which fill so large a space in many historical works, rightly deeming them inferior in importance to those more quiet but deeper movements of society which really determine military and partisan affairs themselves. The book may be heartily recommended to the young, and to all instructors engaged in the teaching of history.

author's aim has been, as is implied in the title, to furnish such an account of the grasses which more commonly come under observation as will be interesting and useful to the farmer and student, as well as to the general reader who has never studied botany. While no attempt has been made to write a complete account of the structure and physiology of grasses, such information is given on these points as will probably be sufficient and satisfactory to the classes of persons mentioned. The first chapter is, in fact, devoted to "The Structure, Form, and Development of the Grasses," and gives intelligible descriptions of their parts and the philosophy of their growth. In the chapters that follow are considered: "The Power of Motion in Plants"; "Plant-Growth" (germination, the functions of green leaves, the plant as a factory, and the composition of plants, particularly of American grasses); "Classifying, Naming, Describing, Collecting, and Studying"; "Native Grazing-Lands"; "Grasses for Cultivation" (under which head thirty-one species are described and figured); "Early Attempts to Cultivate Grasses"; "Testing Seeds, some Common Weeds"; "Grasses for Pastures and Meadows"; "Preparation of the Soil and Seeding"; "Care of Grass-Lands"; "Making Hay"; the improvement of grasses; and "Grasses for the Lawn, the Garden, and for Decoration." Although clover is not a grass, farmers regard it as economically in that category, and a chapter is therefore given to it and other leguminous forage plants. The treatise is concluded with chapters on "The Enemies of Grasses and Clovers" and "The Fungi of Forage Plants," both of which are well illustrated, a bibliography, and a convenient index. A second volume is in preparation, to contain the descriptions of all the known grasses of North America, with illustrations of one species, and sometimes more than one, in each genus, notes on cultivation, and a chapter on geographical distribution.

present number of the "Circulars" is an account of the College of William and Mary, prepared by Professor Herbert B. Adams as a contribution to "The History of Higher Education." The history of this institution, of which Washington was a chancellor, and Jefferson, Chief-Justice Marshall, and other distinguished statesmen were graduates, is made to suggest several lessons bearing upon the higher education, of which the author emphasizes the ideas of "a college-capital, or at least of higher education, in a municipal rather than in a rural, or even suburban, environment; and the revival of that close connection between education and good citizenship which made the College of William and Mary a seminary of statesmen"—ideas which are considered more specifically with reference to what the author declares to be the greatest educational need of our time—the application of historical and political science to American politics.