THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 13 



harvest. The Japanese, possibly obHg-ed by necessity, have 

 been before the occidental in this phase of the science, but our 

 own botanists may be depended upon to give a good account 

 of themselves in this field when once they enter it. 



In the realms of horticulture and landscape gardening the 

 new botanist may be found giving a more artistic touch to the 

 planting of public and private grounds, turning houses into 

 homes and ever laboring for a more beautiful country side. 

 He is active in promoting more extensive public parks and 

 playgrounds, in the developement of cottage gardens, in the 

 beautifying of lawns and the better decoration of cemeteries. 



The public school system has also awakened to the needs 

 of the times and is bending its energies toward making its 

 courses in botany both useful and practical and more in har- 

 mony with present conditions. Everywhere a deeper interest 

 is being taken in agriculture, agronomy, school gardens, nature 

 study, field work in botany and the like. All this is an earnest 

 of the place the botanist is destined to hold in the future de- 

 velopment of our race and country, a place second to none in 

 dignity and influence. 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN FOREST AND PRAIRIE. 



IT was a matter of great interest to the first explorers and 

 settlers in Illinois that so much of the surface was occu- 

 pied by prairie and that the forests were confined to certain 

 physiographical divisions, especially the stream valleys. In 

 seeking to account for this natural feature, the earlier genera- 

 tion of scientists, and to some extent even the modern ones as 

 well, were influenced or even prejudiced by two wrong ideas. 

 In the first place, as they and their ancestors had lived for gen- 

 erations in a forested country the forest came to be regarded 

 as the only possible natural covering, and any other type of 

 vegetation was considered extraordinary. In the second place, 

 they did not at first recognize that the forests were everywhere 



