94 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



from the universities do not give the pessimists much en- 

 couragement. According to Science there were 184 doctorates 

 in science conferred in 1908 and when these are sorted out ac- 

 cording to subject, botany stands sixth in the list, 

 being exceded by chemistry, physics, zoology, psvchologv 

 and mathematics only. Other familiar sciences that fell 

 behind it are geology, physiology, astronomy, anthro- 

 pology and anatomy. It also shows up well in compari- 

 son with the languages for Latin can show but one more doc- 

 torate to its credit while Greek has 2, the romance lano-uasfes 

 1 , and the German languages 3 more. The highest number of 

 doctorates conferred in any one branch was thirty-two, history 

 and chemistry each claiming this number. Zoology, the second 

 highest science was only exceeded by English. Nearly one 

 hundred more doctorates were conferred in science than in all 

 the other branches combined. 



Another illustration of how easily the public can be fooled 

 about anything that pertains to science has been given by no 

 less a publication than the Technical World which published a 

 most astonishing and eroneous acount of "The Rootless Cac- 

 tus of California" in the July number. A straightforward and 

 accurate article upon anything botanical has very little chance 

 of getting into print in competition with these wonderful 

 stories of things that exist only in the imagination 



* * * 



The Botanical Gazette recently advanced its subscription 

 price from $5.00 to $7.00 a year, giving as the reason the in- 

 creased cost of publication and, by implication the lack of sup- 

 port. At the $5.00 rate it is asserted the magazine ran about 

 $2,000 behind each year. Some investigations of the 

 price of European botanical publications indicate that they cost 

 their subscribers about one cent a page. At the new rate the 

 Botanical Gazette will cost about three-fourths of a cent a 



