280 B. M. DUGGAR 



merit; but it offers these as research factors to physiologists, 

 pathologists, and geneticists — all botanists — not to men with 

 merely practice and managerial training. The chief factor, 

 therefore, for our consideration as physiologists, in broadening 

 the horizon for research, is that of fostering contact with horti- 

 culture in order to know sympathetically the problems which grow 

 out of it, and to be in position to assume such problems. It is 

 absurd to condemn it and stand aloof. 



The same thing can scarcely be said of agronomy— using this 

 term in its broadest sense — because agronomy has in some meas- 

 ure kept in fairly close contact with chemistry, with soil physics, 

 with physiology, and with bacteriology. Indeed, soil science is 

 in part all these things. Even here, however, it would be far 

 more advantageous to a unified botany to use our influence to 

 the end that, where fundamental physiological research is planned, 

 appointments be urged and be made specifying physiological 

 research. 



In this connection, moreover, much might be said in regard to 

 the establishment of research positions in various industrial en- 

 terprises, such as drug manufactures, seed houses, and other 

 plant-exploiting industries. A move in this direction has been 

 made recently where a progressive drug manufacturing concern 

 in the Middle West, which formerly employed only chemists and 

 animal pathologists, has seen the wisdom of appointing a research 

 plant physiologist, offering an opportunity to undertake investi- 

 gations in any direction, whether immediately useful or not, 

 which may be related to its enterprise. Agriculture is not our 

 only point of contact with industry. To any one who has looked 

 over the field it must appear deplorable that there exist in this 

 country few, if any, experimental zymological or fermentation 

 laboratories connected with industrial enterprises, yet we all 

 know what has been accomplished in Copenhagen, in Vienna, 

 and elsewhere. In fact, much of the physiological aspect of mi- 

 crobiology as related to industry other than agriculture is in a 

 dormant stage. Wherever opportunity permits we should in- 

 ject the necessary hormone — I say hormone because that seems 

 to connote more than purely chemical relations. 



