

FOURTH ANNUAL BANQUET. 41 



these questions fall into a few catagories. Suppose we had 

 only one plant in the world, for instance the wheat plant. 

 What questions could we ask in regard to that, — in regard 



from 



and air. all the materials from 



from 



These organs possess a most marvelous adaptation of means 

 to ends, and present to every thoughtful person objects of 

 severe and yet attractive disciplinary study. Passing from 

 this, let us see the plant in action. The plant is taking 



the soil and water, and is drinking in from the air, 

 one of the waste products of animal life and activity, and 

 out of these is creating food. It is making that which 

 stands alone between the animal world and starvation. If 

 all plant activity were to cease upon this planet, starvation 

 would stare us in the face, for all food is created first or 

 last by plants. But plants are more than mere store-houses 

 of food. They are treasuries of force. They hold within 

 themselves energy which they have borrowed from the sun- 

 light. This night we have before us resplendent filaments 

 from which light of the coal period flashes back to us. 

 These radiant threads are simply giving back to us the sun- 

 light of that dim past. The relations of the plants of that 

 past to our present involve questions of absorbing interest 

 for the botanist to answer. To examine these questions he 

 must have at command all the appliances of modern chem- 

 istry and modern physics ; therefore let me venture to make 

 as my first suggestion to the trustees of the Shaw Founda- 

 tion that they must not limit their Director when he under- 

 takes investigations in regard to what we call the laws of 

 vegetable life. 



These pressing and utilitarian questions must be answered 

 somewhere. Where can they be approached better than here 

 where you can place at the disposal of the Director and 

 his students everything required for exhaustive research ? 

 The unfolding of the laws which govern all plant life is a 

 condition antecedent to the highest use of plants. The 

 world looks upon that task as largely in your hands. 



