132 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



SO happened that botanists were dealing with very superficial problems 

 in a scientific wa}^ and that plant-breeders were dealing with the most 

 fundamental problems in an empirical way. 



As in any other practice, plant-breeding developed now and then an 

 nmisually successful practitioner, who made distinct contributions in 

 the form of important results; but this represented no more of an 

 advance than does the fact that one cook can surpass another cook in 

 the art of making bread. This caution is necessary, for the results 

 obtained empirically by skillful plant-breeders are too often ascribed 

 to unusual scientific insight. The result is important enough, without 

 reading into it what it does not contain. 



What may be called the second period of plant-breeding was ushered 

 in when organic evolution began to be put upon an experimental basis. 

 Plant-breeding had been practical, but with no scientific basis; now a 

 new plant-breeding was established, which was scientific, and with no 

 practical motive. The new motive was the accumulation of data bear- 

 ing upon the problems of inheritance and the origin of species. 



The third phase of plant-breeding can hardly be called a third period, 

 for it is practically synchronous with the second. As a by-product of 

 the work on inheritance and evolution, some of the scientific results 

 have been applied to practical plant-breeding, and the result has been 

 an expansion of its possibilities that may well be called marvellous. In 

 short, practical plant-breeding is now on a scientific basis ; and botany 

 has at last attacked the fundamental problems and may be of some 

 practical service, for it includes plant-breeding. 



Perhaps it may not be out of place to remind you of the large impor- 

 tance of this combination, for it underlies the welfare of human society. 

 It is a combination of scientific research and its practical application 

 in maintaining an ever-increasing food supply over ever-extending 

 areas. If it is the function of medical research and its application to 

 provide for the welfare of a certain per cent of the population, it is 

 one of the functions of botanical research and its application to agri- 

 culture to provide for the welfare of the tvhole population. Nor is 

 scientific plant-breeding, in its restricted definition, the sole contributor 

 to this end, but bound up with it are plant physiology, ecology, pathol- 

 ogy, soil investigations, and the whole round of interests that touch 

 living plants. In short, there is now possible, for the first time, such 

 a co-operation of scientific results towards a definite end as to make 

 rapid progress possible. For example, it is now possible to secure 



(1) Races of maximum yield for every area, so that the yield of 

 this country shall not be an average between minimum and maximum, 

 but maximum everywhere. 



(2) Drought-resistant races, so that crops not only can be insured 

 against drought where they are now grown, but also can be enormously 

 extended in area. 



(3) Disease-resistant races, so that cultivated plants shall be immune 

 and the loss from diseases eliminated. 



When these possibilities are realized, food production can easily keep 

 pace with increasing population; at present it is lagging far behind. 



In presenting this fleeting glimpse of the problems and accomplish- 

 ments of plant-breeding, I have intended to emphasize not only its 

 fundamental importance to both botanical science and agricultural 

 practice, but also the inextricable entanglement of the two. An}^ result 



