78 THE PLANT WORLD 



EDITORIAL 



The marvellous advance that practical botany has made in this 

 country within the past two decades is perhaps best attested by the 

 growth and expansion along these lines in the IT. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, Some fifteen years ago practically all of the botanical 

 work of the Department was done by three individuals. At the pres- 

 ent time there are probably more than one hundred persons engaged 

 in one capacity or another in botanical work, among them being not 

 less than twenty-five trained investigators of the highest order. From 

 the original Division of Botany other divisions have been cut out from 

 time to time, until at the beginning of the present year they were six 

 or seven in number. The last session of Congress wisely combined all 

 botanical work in the Department in one group, to be known as the 

 Bureau of Plant Industry, thus putting it on a footing with the Wea- 

 ther Bureau and the Bureau of Animal Industry. In it is embraced 

 the old Division of Botany, charged with the economic study of the 

 higher plants; the Division of Seeds, charged particularly with the 

 testing of seeds sent out by Congress; the Division of Agrostology, 

 which devotes all its attention to the grasses; the Division of Plant In- 

 troduction, which covers the introduction of new and desirable plants 

 from foreign countries; the Division of Vegetable Physiology and Path- 

 ology, in which plant diseases are studied; the Division of Pomology, 

 or the study of fruits, and finally the Division of Gardens and Grounds, 

 which attends to the extensive collections of plants grown in the De- 

 partment grounds. The total appropriation for this work is $204,680, 

 which, compared with the few thousands formerly devoted to the sub- 

 ject, shows the liberality with which these interests are fostered by the 

 Government. 



