PROBLEMS OF MODERN SCIENCE 



of information and centre for aid in connection 

 with mycological work being carried out in all 

 parts of the Empire. The enormous yearly losses 

 not only to agricultural crops, such as wheat and 

 other cereals, but even to many valuable forest 

 and timber trees through the attacks of parasitic 

 fungi, emphasises the important part which the 

 mycologist must play in preserving and extending 

 the food and timber resources of the world. An 

 even more important method of dealing with these 

 pests, by the production of resistant varieties, is 

 exemplified by the work of Biffen and others in 

 breeding rust-resistant wheats. The botanical 

 problems connected with cotton- and rubber- 

 production and a host of other economic applica- 

 tions are too many-sided to consider here, but it 

 may be pointed out that there is a great need for 

 adequately trained botanists who are capable of 

 grappling with these problems as they arise. The 

 rapid development of the applications of botany has 

 left us in this country very inadequately equipped 

 for the development of these aspects of applied re- 

 search, and overseas the matter is still more urgent. 

 In these fields plant-pathology usually merges 

 into the study of physiology, a field of botany in 

 which the advances are so manifold that few of them 

 can even be mentioned here. But we may cite as 

 theoretical problems having a practical bearing 

 such recent topics as the electro-culture of seeds 

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