11 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



susceptible to this treatment than flowering plants, 1nit! it now 

 remains for somebody to can a number of our smaller plants 

 and report results. Think of an entire canned garden! It 

 is worth trying. — Ed.) 



Man's Parasites. — Although man furnishes the most 

 striking illustrations of the ease with which both the parasi- 

 tic and host roles may be assumed by a social animal, his 

 capacities in this direction have been but little appreciated by 

 the sociologists. Our bodies, our domestic animals and food 

 plants, dw^ellings, stored foods, clothing and refuse support 

 such numbers of greedy organisms, and we parasitize one 

 another to such an extent, that the biologist marvels how the 

 race can survive. We not only tolerate but even foster in 

 our midst whole parasitic trades, institutions, castes, and 

 nations, hordes of bureaucrats, grafting politicians, middle- 

 men, profiteers-, usurers, a vast and varied assortment of 

 criminals, hoboes, defectives, prostitutes, white-slavers, and 

 other purveyors to antisocial proclivities, in a word so many 

 non-productive, food-consuming, and space-occupying para- 

 sites that their support absorbs nearly all the energy of the 

 free members of society. This condition is, of course, re- 

 sponsible for the small amount of free creative activity in 

 many nations. Biology has only one great categorical imper- 

 ative to offer us and that is : be neither a parasite nor a host 

 and try to dissuade others from being parasites or hosts. — 

 W . M. Wheeler in Scienticfic Monthly. 



Cuban Yucca.. — An item \n one of the horticultural 

 journals mentions the formation of a company in Havana 

 for the production of starch from the Cu1)an yucca. This 

 recalls the fact that the i)lant called yucca in, Cuba is what is 

 more familiarly known as the cassava i)lant (Manihat ittilis- 

 sima). This is undoubtedly the original yucca. The name 



