A COUNTRY BOOKSHELF.* Is it possible to write anything new
about gardening? Mr. John Trevena has written Adventures Among Wild Flowers' from a standpoint which may not be wholly new to the gardener's bookshelf, but which is interesting because it is his own standpoint, and not some one else's occupied for the time being by him. He tells us not only about his flowers, but what they remind him of—a childish memory of a. search for pasque flowers, and three sovereigns which sixty blossoms earned for a boy of twelve; edelweiss and a truculent German professor who took of a monstrous bat to flowers which he loved ; an Italian child who suddenly became afraid of the cruelty of the world; a pedlar shouting with laughter over the wickedness of a lunatic; the spell of Italian beer; his own belief that the Creator's favourite colour is dark blue.. Mr. Trevena is a traveller as well as a novelist; he adds to the sights he has seen the story which he imagines, and contrives to set new individualities among the Alpine flowers which are his favourites.
Compromises are not often satisfactory in gardening, but
Mr. Bowles, in The Garden under Glass,' makes out a good case for his book on the glass house. He caters mainly for the owner of a single house who wants to grow both flowers and fruit; but his advice ranges from the management of vineries and large conservatories to the simpler mistakes which may be made in potting—for instance, using two thumbs instead of six fingers.
Mr. Day's title Spade-Crafts explains his book. He knows that the amateur wants to make a picture without learning to draw, and he begins at the beginning with the soil—trenching, manuring, dressing, watering, and draining. A proper supply of air underground is one of the essentials, and Mr. Day's spade digs its way more quickly to the broad results of scent and colour than does the amateur's trowel.
Mr. Macdonald groups five personalities in his attractive
biography, Makers of Modern Agriculture.* Incidentally he brings out curious contrasts and sidelights. Coke of Norfolk spent f-500,000 at Bolkham, and his enterprise and discoveries brought it all back to him, yet be hardly wrote a line describing hie methods. Arthur Young could teach others by writing, and his own experiments ended in disaster. One of the best stories is of Cyrus McCormick, the inventor of the reaping machine, who went to sleep while a fellow- inventor was describing to him the addition to the reaper of the binder. The combination of the two was perfected in 1874, and since that date the reaper and binder has been used practically without a change in mechanism on the cornfields of the world.
The "Hobby Books "5 are really practical. Twelve have been published, and they range from pets to photography and from stamp-collecting to poultry. Mr. and Mrs. Comyns. Lewer's Poultry-Keeping is one of the best. They write front long experience of amateurs and professionals, and state their belief that failures are generally duo to the beginner trying to do too much at first. They themselves are able to refer to "three pens of fowls, twenty-four in all, which have kept a large household in fresh eggs for the greater part of the year, and allowed a surplus to be put away weekly into water-glass for consumption in the winter."
In A Year in Chickendom° Mr. Hurst describes the daily round of the poultry breeder, compiled from the actual results of several seasons. He writes with humour and tolerance, even of foxhunting, which argues well for his judgment in other matters. Consumers, it seems, are whimsical folk, preferring brown eggs and white legs; they prefer also, it appears, to buy two thin fowls at 2s. 6d. each rather than one fat one at 5e., though the fat one gives three times as much food as the thin. The poultry business grows. Mr. Hurst • (1) Adventures Among Wild Flowers. By John Trevena. London Edward Arnold. [7s. Gd. net.]—(2) The Garden und.r Glass. By W. F. Bowles. London : Grant dlichards. [6s. net.] rn —(3) Spode-Craft. By H. A. Day. London : Methuen and Co. Ds. net. —44) Makers of Modern ilori..asaure. By William Macdonald. London : Macmillan and Co. [2a. Cd. net.]--- (5) Poultry-Keeping, by Mrs. E. Comyus-Lewer and Sydney H. Lewer ; Motoring, by W. Graystoke ; Home Entertainments, by A. and F. M. Williams; Stamp Collecting, by A. B. Creeke, inn. ; Horne If echasice, edited by Archibald Wi:liams. " The Hobby Books." London: T. Nelson and Sons. [Is. net each.1—(6) A Year in Ckickstulota. By J. W. Hurst. London : Ethold. [2a. 6d. net.]
instances a neighbour who last year sent one hundred and thirty tons of fowls to the London market, and the total quantity sent yearly to London from the chicken-breeding centre in the South of England is about two thousand two hundred tons ; Mr. Hurst guesses this at one million two hundred and fifty thousand chickens.
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