NOTES AND COMMENT 



The Plant World is now in its twentieth year. It began its 

 career as a magazine for the amateur botanist and nature-lover. The 

 number of amateurs interested in botany twenty years ago was not 

 as great as the number of men and women who are today professional- 

 ly engaged in botanical work or the application of scientific principles 

 to problems of plant utilization or plant production. When The Plant 

 World was founded the professional botanists of this country were 

 outnumbered by hundreds of persons who derived pleasure and bene- 

 fit from the collecting of plants or the use of the microscope. At the 

 present time the men who are engaged in research or instruction in 

 pure botany, and the men who are deriving enjoyment from botanical 

 pursuits as a hobby, are even more heavily outnumbered by the thou- 

 sands who are using their knowledge of plants in the service of man- 

 kind. 



The changes that have been made in The Plant World during the 

 twenty years of its existence have been a reflection of the changes in 

 botany and its allied subjects, and have been a part of the growth of 

 science. It occupies a unique place among botanical journals in hav- 

 ing no financial support from any institution or society, deriving its 

 income entirely from subscriptions and from sources of profit wliich 

 are bestowed upon it by members of the Plant World Association. 

 This makes its policies more independent and its field of service more 

 capable of rapid adjustment to the changes of the tunes. 



We are now passing through a period of our national history in 

 which it seems particularly fitting that we should consider the func- 

 tions which are being performed by our scientific journals, and the 

 role that they can play in the relation of science to the general progress 

 of human affairs. The sums of money expended in the publication 

 of scientific work are largely a direct tax upon science itself, being 

 derived either from the emoluments of individual scientists, or' from 

 funds which are just as available for promoting investigation as for 

 publishing results. 



It is the earnest desire of the members of the Plant World Associa- 

 tion that this journal use its resources in a very clear-cut sense of 



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