302 NOTES AND COMMENT 



service to botany in particular and to science in general. Like the 

 majority of botanical and zoological publications The Plant World is 

 not in the custom of paying for its contributions, and is therefore in 

 the position of offering to its readers that wliich its contributors have 

 regarded as worthy of their time and efforts. Practically all of the 

 papers published in The Plant World during the past five years have 

 been contributed by readers of the journal. It is to this group, there- 

 fore, that we must look for all efforts to increase the effectiveness of 

 our pages at the present time. We are deeply desirous that this 

 journal should serve not only as a record of investigations but as a 

 means of articulating the botanical work of America with the progress 

 of science in general and with the appreciation of the growing audience 

 outside of strictly professional circles to whom the larger features of 

 our advancement are of interest and value. 



The Plant World is anxious to have its readers make still further 

 use of its pages as a medium of publication. Articles embodying 

 original work are always of the highest order of importance, but it is 

 desirable that such articles be succinct, even if they are not brief, both 

 for the sake of the economy which is now (and always) a national duty, 

 and for the sake of securing a larger audience among the hurried read- 

 ers who also see many other periodicals. The time is rapidly approach- 

 ing — if it is not already here — when the funds which are available 

 for scientific work in America will be measured directly by the degree 

 to which the intelligent people of our country understand the progress 

 and problems of science. It is the manifest duty of the men who are 

 engaged in scientific investigation to keep in view the utility of their 

 work, which may be of an immediately practical character or may be 

 of an indirectly practical but much more fundamental character. 

 It is equally the duty of every worker in natural science to prepare 

 from time to time short articles regarding his special field of work, 

 written without undue use of technical terms and in a style which is 

 readable without being superficially popular. The Plant World is 

 not only willing to publish articles of this character but is anxious to 

 secure them. The existence of a journal containing matter of this 

 sort, covering botany and its allied fields, will be welcomed by the 

 rapidly growing body of men and women who know something of the 

 methods and aims of modern science but have no means of keeping in 

 touch with its rapid and diversified progress. Without some medium 

 by which the achievements and hopes of the investigator can be made 

 known to the educated public of the country, our scientific work will 



