The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 64, July 1960 - April, 1961 Page: 530

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

will reveal that life in Texas has been real and earnest since rec-
ord-keeping started.
President Houston started his second term by "publicly wash-
ing his hands" of one of his predecessor's (Mirabeau B. Lamar)
favorite ideas-the Texas Navy. General Houston dictated a "per-
emptory order" for the Navy to stop its free-wheeling operations
in the Gulf of Mexico and come back to Galveston. But it took
four months for Commodore Moore, the commander, to receive
the order.
Meanwhile, the President stayed busy with a fiscal headache. He
and the Texas Congress agreed to meet the shortage of funds in
a manner that today would seem suicidal to government. "Appro-
priations dropped go per cent, from a $2,000,00o average to less
than $200,00o a year," Gambrell recalls. "The salary account was
cut from $173,506 to $32,000."
In a masterpiece of understatement, the author added: "They
called it the Retrenchment Congress."
RICHARD M. MOREHEAD
Austin, Texas
Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of the Southwest. By Robert
A. Vines. Austin (University of Texas Press), 196o. Pp.
xii+;11o4. Illustrations, bibliography, index. $25.00.
This reviewer first became acquainted with the author about
the time the author was making his final commitment to the task
of writing a treatise on the Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of
Texas. It was not until the work had progressed far, that con-
tinuous research on the distribution of woody plants within Texas
gradually brought on an awareness that a great majority of Texas
plants crossed the state line into adjacent states whose climate was
similar. Further investigation revealed that the number of species
found in adjoining states, but not in Texas, was comparatively
few. It thus became evident that they might be included without
unduly increasing the length of the book, and without materially
altering its original emphasis on Texas. Since vegetation is dis-
tributed largely in response to climate, and the facts of climatic
change are mappable, attention is called to the accompanying
map. Reduced from a tracing made directly from the National

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