The Various Ways in Which Plants Appeal 3 



has precisely the same meaning with plants as with animals, 

 comprehending the study of those functions or processes by which 

 they secure the maintenance of their daily lives and the per- 

 petuation of their kinds. It is studied chiefly through expermient 

 by aid of the exact methods and instruments of physics and 

 chemistry, though it reaches into realms which those sciences 

 do not touch. Fourth is Ecology, youngest of the divisions of the 

 science, and greater as yet in promise than performance, but 

 nevertheless of the very first interest to a great many people. 

 It explains the adaptations of plants and their parts, that is, 

 the ways in w^hich these are adjusted to the conditions of the 

 world around, involving the meanings of their forms, sizes, 

 colors and the like. This division has sometimes been called, 

 and still is by some Germans, Biology; but that word should be 

 kept for its legitimate use as meaning the study of life com- 

 prehensively, and therefore equivalent to Zoology and Botany 

 together. Fifth is Plant Industry (called also Economic Botany), 

 which is the study of the ways in which plants may be made to 

 yield the greatest service to man. The older phases thereof. 

 Agriculture, Horticulture, Pharmacology, and Forestry, originall}^ 

 purely practical, are now scientifically studied, and to their 

 very great profit; while strictly scientific from their foundation 

 have been the newer phases of Pathology, or the study of diseases, 

 Bacteriology, or the study of germs and their effects, and Plant- 

 breeding, or the systematic development of better kinds of plants. 

 And to these divisions there is every promise that the near future 

 will add yet a sixth, Botanical Education, which will attempt not 

 only to train students much better in the science, but also to 

 interpret botanical progress to the world at large. An important 

 phase of this division will be the production of works, on the 

 Natural History of Plants, which will set forth, with a combination 

 of scientific accuracy and hterary charm, not only the technical 

 and economic aspects of plant life, but also those historical, 

 legendary, and imaginative aspects which give to a study its 



