A QUARTER-CENTURY OF PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 13 



as you know, have been carried out in the plant physiological 

 laboratory of this University. • 



If many of the impressive terms of a few decades ago seem 

 to have lost their charm, we still have charmed words, with which 

 to conjure. Hormones, anti-bodies, the determiners of the genet- 

 icists, are examples of these. As our own Professor Barnes 

 used to say, such words are "cloaks for our ignorance," and they 

 may be expected to lose their charm at a still later day, when 

 our ignorance, in these connections, having become somewhat 

 clothed with knowledge, may no longer require a cloak. 



Relation of plant ecology, agriculture and forestry to plant 

 physiology. In closing, I should like still further to emphasize 

 the intimate relation between plant physiology and ecology. I 

 regard the province of the last-named branch of science as the 

 interpretation, in terms of controlling conditions, of all plant 

 phenomena as they occur in nature. Ecology must, then, in- 

 clude all that is science in agriculture and forestry, for these 

 sciences deal mainb/ with natural conditions. It is of little 

 importance whether seed was sown by wind, by the movements 

 of birds, or by those of man ; it is also of little importance whether 

 the plants growing from this seed are probably destined to be 

 devoured by human beings or by insects and fungi; the funda- 

 mental problems of agriculture and forestry are the same as 

 those of what is commonly called ecology. Ecology may be 

 considered as applied physiology and the arts of agriculture and 

 forestry are largely appUed ecology. 



For a long time botany, in this country at least, held itself 

 aloof from agriculture and contented itself with "teaching teachers 

 to teach teachers to teach." The plant physiologists of the 

 university laboratories had httle sympathy with the application 

 of their science, and agriculture and forestry were compelled, 

 perforce, to estabhsh their own schools, where the kind of botany 

 they needed might be taught. When ecology arose, only a few 

 years before the founding of this University, it too was almost 

 scorned by many professional botanists. In spite of much 

 disapproval ecology" has grown, however, in these last three 

 decades, to be a wondrously strong and healthy child of the 



