secretary's budget. 399 



plants through a " key" in the botany and finds their names. In ad- 

 dition, he — or more commonly she — presses a few plants, sews them in 

 a scrap-book, and this so called herbarium completes her botanical 

 studies. This work is entirely superficial, and bears no more relation 

 to the pure science of botany than learning a tune by rote does to the 

 art of music. It is to be considered as nothing more than a school girl 

 accomplishment. Happily, this method is being superseded by better 

 methods — the " new methods," which induce the student to study what 

 the plant does and how it does it, rather than simply what it is. What 

 are the laws of plant growth? Ilow does the seed germinate? How 

 are flowers fertilized ? What are the plant's relations to soils, temper- 

 ature, moistare, intensity of light, to insects, and other active agen- 

 cies ? What is the physiology of diseases induced by un propitious sur- 

 roundings, by fungi and by insects ? What are the phenomena of cross 

 and close fertilization and hybridization ? What is the physiological 

 nature, and what the cause of changes produced by cultivation? What 

 are the influences of plants upon climate and soil, and upon insects 

 and other animals ? 



These are some of the queries which modern botany seeks to an- 

 swer. This modern science is more recent than manj'^ people suppose. 

 It is only within the last decade that it has begun to receive an impulse 

 and general attention in this country. The subject is a peculiarly diffi- 

 cult one, and results come slowly. It contains as many or more practi- 

 cal problems, however, as does chemistry or entomology. The phe- 

 nomena of plant growth and plant biology are so intimately connected 

 with intricate and variable problems — such as weather, soils and cli- 

 mate — that their solution demands more time than does a purely chem- 

 ical or physical phenomenon. 



There is nowhere a broader field for practical research than in 

 botanical science. A simple enumeration of common things which 

 the farmer ought to know about plants, and which the botanist is en- 

 tirely unable to explain, would fill columns. For instance, no one 

 knows if cucumbers and melons, or squashes and pumpkins, will cross 

 fertilize and produce the same year fruits half cucumber and melon, 

 or half squash and pumpkin ; and the experimenting which is necessary 

 to settle this seemingly simple problem is considerable. 



We must look to well equipped experiment stations for the larger 

 results in botanical research as applied to agriculture. However, 

 there is individual work which the teacher of botany should do toward 

 making a practical application of the science. He should recognize 

 the tact that our botanies are of no aid to the classification and recog- 

 nition of cultivated varieties of plants, and that they have very little 



