By M. M. Vil-morin - Andrieux of Paris. Translated into English. Edited by Wm. Robinson, Editor of the Garden, London. Published by John Murray, 1885.

Mr. Robinson in the preface to this superb book says that " our best friends do not always get our best attention;" but our good friends, the garden vegetables, will have no cause to complain, for we doubt whether their jealous neighbors, flowers and fruits, ever received such ardent attention as the Vilmorins have given vegetables in the book before us. It is a large octavo of 620 pages, and with illustrations on nearly every page.

The American reader will miss his indispensable Lima bean and other favorites, and he might wish that the book could have been so managed as to cover American ground in other respects, as well as the ground so ably occupied from an European stand-point; still, if he wants a library worthy of the name, he will have to find a place for this. Mr. Robinson, who as editor of the French translator has done all English speaking people a service, well remarks that though the French original has been by him " newly done in English," it is a work for America and Australia as well as the " old house at home".

Besides being an indispensable work to the intelligent cultivator, the historical and other notes will render the book as welcome to the general literary taste as to those of a merely culinary disposition. It seems as if everything that could be collected about vegetables is given here. Sometimes we fancy research has given more impor-ance to some facts than they deserve. For instance, speaking of our Indian corn we are told under "uses," "The head or ' cob ' is boiled and served up, either entire or the seeds are taken off and served up like kidney beans. The heads are also gathered when very young and small, and before the flower opens, and are pickled in vinegar like gherkins." Possibly the young ears are so treated to a vinegar bath, but the Editor of this magazine never heard of it before, and if so, such a use must be very local indeed.