BOOK REVIEWS The Origin, Variation, Immunity and Breeding of Cultivated Plants—Se- lected Writings of N. I. Vavilov. ‘Translated from the Russian by K. Starr Chester. Chron. Bot. Vol. 13, No. 1/6 (pp. viii +306). 1951. Waltham, Mass.: The Chronica Botanica Co.; New York City: Stechert-Hafner, Inc. $7.50. In 1883 Alphonse de Candolle published his “Lorigine des plantes cultivées", and so careful and painstaking was the labor behind this book that it has been regarded ever since as the classic on the history of cultivated plants from a world-wide viewpoint. The conclusions of that great study were founded upon an imposing variety of evidence which did not, however, include the evidence offered by studies on the anatomy, genetics, cytol- ogy, distribution and diseases of the plants concerned. It remained for a later genera- tion to give consideration to these aspects of the problem, when, in the 1920's, the Soviet, All-Union Institute of Plant Industry con- ducted a world-wide search for breeding material useful in producing food crops for the Soviet Union. In pursuing this investi- gation, expeditions were sent to 60 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, Central America and South America, and some 300,000 samples of seed and seedling material, in addition to a tremendous mass of information, were assembled. The guiding’ spirit behind this great work was N. I. Vavilov who, as one-time President of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sci- ences and Director of the Institute of Ap- plied Botany, was instrumental in establish- ing and directing more than 400 research institutes and experiment stations with a staff of 20,000 in the years from 1921 to 1934. During part of this time he partici pated in expeditions to Afghanistan, Aby sinia, China, Central America and South America, where he collected economie plants, including 26,000 strains of wheat. In addi tion, he did extensive writing, in Russian, and the climax of his career was marked in 1935 “by publication of the 2500-page sym- posium, ‘The Scientific Bases of Plant Breeding’, of which Vavilov was editor and principal author. Here, in their last and most complete form, are given Vavilov’s con- tributions on the origin of cultivated plants, the law of homologous series in variation, the immunity of plants from diseases and the scientific bases of wheat breeding. Vavilov had hoped to translate at least a part of these contributions into English for the bene- fit of his many English-speaking fellow scien- tists and friends, but this was prevented by his untimely death, and, until the present, these classies of botanical-agricultural litera ture, in their mature form, have been printed only in the Russian language ”. Unfortunately for him but fortunate for the scientific world, Vavilov was a genetic'st and plant-breeder of the old school. When the academic furor arose in Soviet Russia concerning fundamental doctrines of biology, he was on the losing side and very likely was “liquidated”, probably in the early months of 1942, At any rate, he was not heard from after that, and his writings, since they had not yet been translated and published, were of value to only a few biologists outside the Soviet Union. It is therefore a long awaited and valuable contribution that Dr. Chester and the publishers of this present translation have made in now offering in English and in full, all of Vavilov’s writings that formed a part of the symposium referred to above. While all six writings of Vavilov that make up this translated edition deal with economic botany in a broad sense, particular interest. for readers of Economic Botany attaches to his “Phytogeographic Basis of Plant Breeding”. In this chapter he gives impor- tant conclusions resulting from the extensive and systematic geographic investigation by the Institute of Plant Industry on a great number of field, vegetable and fruit crops, and bemoans the fact that “the vast conti nents of South America and Africa, Ind’: China, Indo-China, and Western Asia hav been studied but little”. Nevertheless, he goes on to say: 309310 “But from the incomplete data which we now possess on the vegetation of the earth, the important fact of the geographic locali- zation of the process of species formation has been made clear. The geography of plants shows definitely that in modern times the distribution of plant species on the earth is not uniform. There are a number of regions which poseess exceptionally large numbers of varieties. Southeastern China, Indo- China, India, the Malay Archipelago, south- western Asia, tropical Africa, the Cape regions, Abyssinia, Central Ameria, South ‘America, southern Mexico, countries along the shores of the Mediterranean, and the Near East possess extraordinary concentra tions of plant varieties. On the other hand, the northern countries—Siberia, all of central id northern Europe and North Americ: are characterized by a poverty of varieties ”. “ Central Asia is surprisingly rich in varie~ ties. Within the Soviet Union, from Crimea towards Transcaucasia and the mountainous regions of Central Asia through Altai and Tian-Shan, the number of varieties markedly increases. "It reaches its peak in the Cauca~ sus and the mountains and foothills of Cen- tral Asia. Here the number of species is very great for a given area. The concentra- tion of species in these regions is ten times greater than in Central Europe and still greater when compared with the northern regions ". “In some parts of the world, the concen tration of varieties is remarkable. Thus, for example, the small republics of Central America, Costa Rica and Salvador, have areas about one hundredth of that ‘of the United States, yet they possess a number of species as great as is found in all of North America, i., in the United States, Canada, and Alaska combined ”. It must be borne in mind that these con- clusions and all others on the distribution and origin of cultivated plants emanating from the Soviet work were not the primary objective of that work, they were incidental to it, the primary objective being to find and bring home genetically valuable breeding stock. One is particularly apt to lose sight of this when considering the details of the conclusion that there have been “eight ancient centers of origin of world agriculture or, more exactly, of eight independent regions ECONOMIC BOTANY where various plants were first. cultivated ”. These are as follows: a) The Chinese Center—“ The earliest and largest independent center of the world’s agriculture and of the origin of cultivated plants consists of the mountainous regions of central and western China, together with the adjacent lowlands”. One hundred thirty-six species, including a few groups of varieties, are listed for this center. 5) The Indian Center, exclusive of north- west India, Punjab and the Northwest fron- tier, but including Assam and Burma. One hundred seventeen species listed here. A subdivision of this center is given as the Indo-Malayan Center, including Indo-China and the Malay Archipelago, and accounting for 65 kinds of plants. c) The Central Asiatic Center. Includes northwest India (Punjab, the northwestern frontier provinces, Kashmir), all of Afghani- stan and the Soviet Republies of Tadjikistan, Uabekistan and western Tian-Shan. Forty- two kinds of economic plant. d) The Near-Eastern Center, including the interior of Asia Minor, the whole of Trans- caucasia, Iran and the highlands of Turk- menistan. Eighty-three species. e) The Mediterranean Center. four species. 4) The Abyssinian Center. Thirty-eight species and groups of varieties. 9) The South Mexican and Central Ameri- can Center. Forty-nine items. h) The South American (Peruvian-Ecua- dorian-Bolivian) Center. Forty-five items. Two subdivisions are given as the Chiloe and the Brazilian-Paraguayan Centers, account ing for 17 kinds of plants. “From the lists given above”, says Vavi- lov, “it seems apparent that an overwhelm- i of the cultivated plants had in the Old World. Of the 640 most important cultivated plants listed, over 500 belong to the Old World, ie., 5/6 of the cultivated plants of the world. Tke New World contributed approximately 100 plants”, ‘Two other features of Vavilov’s interpre- tation of the great mass of data assembled under his direction merit mention hert. One is his recognition of so-called secondary centers of origin and that many of our culti- vated plants had a diversified instead of a Eighty-BOOK REVIEWS single origin. The soft wheats, for instance, ‘ame from southwestern Asia, while the hard wheats originated in the Mediterranean region; and maize, originating in the South Mexican and Central American Center, de- veloped groups of waxy varieties in the Chi- nese Center. The result is that many kinds of plants are listed in two of the eight world centers. The other feature is Vavilov’s recognition of so-called primary and second- ary erops. The first, to which belong wheat, barley, corn, soy bean, flax and cotton, “ con- sists of plants cultivated from ancient times and known only in cultivation or in wild state. The second group consists of all plants which have been derived from weeds Which grew among the basic primary plants”. In areas favorable to the primary crops, these weeds were of little importance, but in unfavorable regions they gradually replaced the primaries, Such was the devei- ‘opment, for instance, of rye and oats. Had ‘Vavilov been spared his untimely death, the botanical world concerned with the economic aspects of plant life might have been enriched by valuable contributions from this man other than those offered in this excellent translation to the English-speaking world. ‘The Chemistry and Technology of Food and Food Products. Morris B. Jacobs and collaborators. 3 volumes. 1951. Vol. T: $12; Vol. II: ; Vol. TIT: $15. Inter- science Publishers, Inc. This second edition, completely revised and augmented (not second revised edition as the title page misleadingly states), is the work of 39 collaborators under the editorship of Dr. Jacobs who has long been prominent in the chemistry and technology of foods, and constitutes an encyclopedic work of about 2,500 pages on the subject. The first edi- tion, published in 1944, comprised two vol- umes, but in this new edition a third volume has been added. The first and third volumes are devoted to the chemistry, processing and other technological aspects of food products, but Volume IT, in addition to its considera~ tion of dairy products, meats and seafood, includes chapters, totaling 660 pages, on cereal grains, vegetables and mushrooms, confectionery and cacao products, coffee and tea, and flavors, spices, condiments and essen- 3 tial oils. These chapters alone, if lifted from the volume, would constitute a worthy refer- ence work’ on vegetable foods, and along with vegetable-product information scattered through some of the other chapters, the three volumes offer a most valuable asset for any technological, chemical or general reference library. A History of the Hemp Industry in Kentucky. James F. Hopkins. xiv +240 pages. University of Kentucky Press. 1951. $4. In the colonial days of America and the first 80 years of the succeeding new Republic, while sailing vessels were in vogue, hemp fiber was a commodity of importance, for it was the material out of which sails and cord- age for shipping were made. The coarsest of clothing, too, was made from it, as well as bagging for the cotton produce of the South. In the early days English shipping was de- pendent for this material upon the Baltic countries, but, always threatened by the possibility of those supplies being cut off, British and colonial shipping interest looked to America as a possible new source of the fiber. Various forms of encouragement— bounties and legislative orders—were pro- mulgated to stimulate American production of the fiber. Some success attended these efforts, and after the Revolution, the indus- try spread beyond the Alleghanies. In this development Kentucky became one of the principal hemp-producing States, and the history of that development, from its beginning through its decline, has been sifted from hundreds of sources and presented in this volume. In that State, as well as else- where, “hemp was important to the farmer who produced the fiber, to the manufacturer who transformed it into cordage and coarse cloth, to the commission merchant who sold the finished product locally or in other areas, and to the politician who had always to bear in mind the interests and desires of his con- stituents”. In 1810 Kentucky contributed all the hemp reported, “ three-fourths of the crop of 1840, one-half of the yield in 1847 and in 1849, and about one-third the total production of 1859. Most of the hemp out- side her borders grew in Missouri, which in 1849 produced slightly less, and in 1859 slightly more, than Kentucky”. According.