Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 54.djvu/296

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
282
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Alpheus S. A Half Century of Evolution, with Special Reference to the Effect of Geological Changes on Animal Life. (Presidential address to American Association.) Pp. 48—Rhees, William J. William Bower Taylor. Pp. 12.—Searcy, J. T., M. D. How Education fails. Pp. 81.—Shufeldt, R. W., M. D. On the Alternation of Sex in a Brood of Young Sparrow Hawks. Pp. 4.—Starr, Frederick. Notched Bones from Mexico. A Shell Inscription from Tula, Mexico. Pp. 10.—Woolman, Lewis. Report on Artesian Wells in New Jersey, etc. Pp. 84.

Smithsonian Institution. United States National Museum. The Fishes of North and Middle America. By D. S. Jordan and B. W. Evermann. Part II. Pp. 942.—The Birds of the Kurile Islands. By Leonhard Stejneger. Pp. 28.—On the Coleopterous Insects of the Galapagos Islands. By Martin L. Linell. Pp. 20.—On Some New Parasitic Insects of the Subfamily Encystinæ. By L. O. Howard. Pp. 18.—Descriptions of the Species of Cycadeoidea, or Fossil Cycadean Trunks, thus far determined from the Lower Cretaceous Rim of the Black Hills. By Lester F. Ward. Pp. 36.

Socialist, The, Almanac and Treasury of Facts. New York: Socialistic Co-operative Publishing Association. Prepared by Lucien Sanal. Pp. 232. (The People's Library. Quarterly. 60 cents a year.)

Thompson, Ernest Seton. Wild Animals I have known, and Two Hundred Drawings. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 359. $2.

Todd, Mabel Loomis. Corona and Coronet. Being a Narrative of the Amherst Eclipse Expedition to Japan, 1896, etc. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp 383. $2.50.

Trowbridge, John. Philip's Experiments, or Physical Science at Home. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 228. $1.

United States Geological Survey. Bulletin No. 88. The Cretaceous Foraminifera of New Jersey. By R. M. Bagg, Jr. Pp. 89, with 6 plates.—No. 89. Some Lava Flows from the Western Slope of the Sierra Nevada, California. Pp. 74.—No. 149. Bibliography and Index of North American Geology, Palæontology, Petrology, and Mineralogy for 1898. By F. B. Weeks. Pp. 152.—Monograph. Vol. XXX. Fossil Medusæ. By Charles Doolittle Walcott. Pp. 201, with 47 plates.

Universalist Register, The, for 1898. Edited by Richard Eddy, D. D. Boston: Universalist Publishing House. Pp. 120. 20 cents.

Warman, Cy. The Story of the Railroad. New York: D. Appleton and Company. (Story of the West Series.) Pp. 280.

Waterloo, Stanley. Armageddon. A Tale of Love, War, and Invention. Pp. 259.

Whiting Paper Company, Holyoke, Mass. The Evolution of Paper. Pp. 20. Chicago and New York: Rand, McNally & Co.

Wilson, J. Self-Control, or Life without a Master. New York: Lemcke & Büchner.

Worcester, Dean C. The Philippine Islands and their People. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 529. $4.

Wyckoff, Walter A. The Workers. An Experiment in Reality. The West. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 378. $1.50.



Fragments of Science.

Tree Planting in the Arid Regions.—In planting the arid and subarid regions of the country, where no trees are growing naturally, Mr. B. E. Fernow says, in a review of the work of the Department of Forestry, different methods of cultivation from those given in the humid parts are necessary, and the plant material has to be selected with a view to a rigorous climate characterized by extreme ranges of temperature varying from -40° to +120° F. The requirements of the plants for moisture must be of the slightest, and they must be capable of responding to the demands of evaporation. At first, whatever trees will grow successfully from the start under such untoward conditions would have to be chosen, no matter what their qualities otherwise might be. The first settlers have ascertained by trials some of the species that will succeed under such conditions, but unfortunately most of them are of but small economic value, and some of them are only short-lived under the conditions in which they have to grow. A few years ago Mr. Fernow came to the conclusion that the conifers, especially the pines, would furnish more useful and otherwise serviceable material for the arid regions. Besides their superior economical value, they require less moisture than most of the deciduous trees that have been planted, and they would, if once established, persist more readily through seasons of drought and be longer lived. A small trial plantation on the sand hills of Nebraska lent countenance to this theory. It being vastly more difficult to establish the young plants in the first place than in the case of deciduous trees, much attention was given to the provision for protection of the seedlings from sun and winds; and they were planted in mixture with "nurse trees" that would furnish not too much and yet enough shade. "It can not be said that the success in using these species has so far been very encouraging; nevertheless, the failure may be charged rather to our lack of knowledge and to causes that can be overcome than to any inherent incapacity in the spe-