No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. ' 131 



BOTANY ON THE FARM. 



By Pkof. GKORGE C. BUTZ, State College, Pa. 



The study of any science makes men more thoughtful upon the 

 facts and principles of that science. Farming operations are placed 

 upon a scientific plane when we regard their relations to the princi- 

 ples of the sciences appertaining to them. 



The study of agricultural chemistry directs our thoughts not to 

 the grain or ha^^ we feed our animals, but to the muscle and milk- 

 forming elements con'tained in them; not to the manure of the barn- 

 yard, but to the plant food in it. The study of soil phj^sics likewise 

 turns our minds from the plow and the harrow to the aeration and 

 nitrification of soils and the conservation of moisture. The study 

 of botany regards not the fodder, the stubble, nor the ears on the 

 corn plant so much as the form of life in it subject to the influences 

 of light, heat and moisture, all of which may be modified by our 

 methods of culture. The time was, not long since, when botany was 

 a science wholly apart from the practices of agriculture. The 

 height of the botanist's ambition was to know every plant in exist- 

 ence, give it a name and a place in his "General Plantarum," and 

 when thoroughly dry and dead, place it in the catacombs of his her- 

 barium. Ho loved his plants 7nore, being dead, than alive. JVow, 

 however, the science of botany is one of the most helpful studies 

 that the thoughtful farmer can pursue. 



The living plant, not the dead plant, is the subject of considera- 

 tion, its organs of nutrition, its adaptability to cultivation, its strug- 

 gle for existence, its capabilities under judicious treatment, its 

 power to resist its natural foes, the possibility of its permanent im- 

 provement, and so on. 



In studying the strucfm^e of plants, we learn that however much 

 they differ from each other in size or habit of growth, every part 

 present may be referred to one of the three essential parts of a 

 plant, namely, the root, stem or leaf. The stem being the axis 

 of the plant, it furnishes a channel for communication between the 

 leaves in the air and the roots in the soil. The stem may be so 

 modified that it resembles a leaf, as in the flat-stemmed seaside 

 grape (Muehlenbergia platy clada), or it may form underground, 

 imitating a root, as in the potato. Nevertheless, it is still a stem, 



