400 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETT. 



to do with agricultural problems of plant growth aud diseases. By 

 general consent, the domain of botany ceases when a plant is im- 

 pressed into cultivation. This should not be so. It is legitimately 

 the province of botany to follow a plant as long as it is a plant, and to 

 explain to its cultivator the laws of its growth and improvement. At 

 present, we need botanists in the garden more than in the field. The- 

 crying demand of horticulture is some system of classsification and no- 

 menclature which will enable the ordinary horticulturist to name ac- 

 curately an apple or a verbena. All our varieties of cultivated planta 

 have a number of names, and we are entirely unable to designate the 

 proper name., or to determine in many cases if the variety is really 

 new or worthy. The elegant system of botanical nomenclature can. 

 be applied, with some modifications, to cultivated plants. In a late' 

 number of the Country Gentleman^ 1 proposed an application of this 

 nomenclature. Our greatest need is for a system of classification 

 which will enable us to identify horticultural varieties. How shall 

 we classify all our varieties of apples? Surely not on size, color, fla- 

 vor, time of ripening or length of keeping. We must discover perma- 

 nent marks in flower and leaf and tree to aid us. 



At the meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural 

 Science at Ann Arbor, Mich., Aug. 25, Dr. C E. B3ssey, of the Univer- 

 sity of Nebraska, proposed that botanists enter this unoccupied field' 

 which lies between botany on the one hand and horticulture and agri- 

 culture on the other, and claim it, as their legitimale possession. He 

 further submitted a general synopsis to which or to parts of which the 

 individual botanist can work with inestimable benefit to agriculture \. 

 I. Nomenclature and classification of cultivatied plants. 



II. Researches in physiology of plants. 



1. In growth and nutrition. 



2. In reproduction. 

 a. Fertilization. 



J. Germination. 



e. Hereditary, cross breeding, etc. 



3. Physiology of cultivation and improvement. 

 III. Researches in pathology, or science of diseases. 



1. Lowered vitality. 



2. Poisoning: e. ,^. from gases, soils, etc. 



3. Temperature. > 

 a. Physiology of freezing. 



}). Phjsiology of " scalding." 



4. Insect diseases. 



5. Fungoid diseases. 



L. H. Bailey, Jr., Michigan Ag. College- 



