ADVISORY committee; ON BOTANY 5 



A digest of meteorological observations and measurements of run- 

 off already at hand is to be studied in relation to forest types, first 

 in the United States and later abroad (notably in British India and 

 the West Indies), if necessary. Simultaneously the historical study 

 above mentioned should proceed, with special reference to Mediter- 

 ranean countries and British India. I^arge cooperation ma)^ be ex- 

 pected from the Weather Bureau, the Geological Survey, the Bureau 

 of Forestry, and other government organizations. Field study of 

 forest types and rainfall and forest types and run-off, both on restricted 

 areas, would be required, but such studies should take place usually 

 in regions of sudden changes of forest and climate, and should not 

 restrict the general breadth of the investigation, which should be 

 distinctively continental in character. 



B. The establishment and niaintenance of a desert botanical labora- 

 tory for the purpose of ascertaining the methods by which plants perform 

 their ftmctions under the extraordi^iary co7iditions existi^ig in deserts. 



There should be established at some point in the desert region of 

 the southwestern United States a laboratory for the study of the life 

 history of plants under desert conditions, with special reference to 

 the absorption, storage, and transpiration of water. Although there 

 are many botanical laboratories in the humid portions of the tem- 

 perate regions, as well as several marine laboratories and tropical 

 laboratories devoted in whole or in part to botanical research, a desert 

 botanical laboratory exists nowhere in the world. Yet the phe- 

 nomena presented in the adaptations of plants to desert conditions are 

 among the most interesting and significant, from an evolutionary 

 point of view, of any in the whole realm of botany. 



The economic ground for the establishment of such a laboratory 

 is the enormous development of population and industries that is 

 bound to take place in our arid region during the next hundred years. 

 The basis of that development is agriculture, both with and without 

 irrigation. At the present time comparatively little is known about 

 the peculiar fundamental processes of plant growth under the uimsual 

 conditions surrounding plant life in that region. The investigations 

 proposed are of so general a character, so expensive, and so difficult 

 that no agricultural experiment station has as yet undertaken them, 

 and there is no prospect that any station will do so. When, how- 

 ever, the processes of plant growth in our deserts have been thor- 

 oughly investigated and are well understood, the botanists of the 

 agricultural experiment stations in the arid states will be in a posi- 

 tion to make a practical application of this knowledge to the special 

 agricultural crops of the region. 



