62 ' THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



flowers and leaves may yield new perfumes and flavors ? What 

 probability is there that new remedial agents may be tound 

 among plants neglected or now wholly unknown ? The answer 

 which I shall attempt is not in the nature of a prophecy ; it can 

 claim no higher rank than that of a reasonable conjecture. 



At the outset it must be said that synthetic chemistry has 

 made and is making some exceedingly short cuts across this 

 field of research, giving us artificial dyes, odors, flavors, and 

 medicinal substances of such excellence that it sometimes seems 

 as if before long the old-fashioned chemical processes m the plant 

 itself would play only a subordinate part. But although there is 

 no telling where the triumphs of chemical synthesis will end, it 

 is not probable that it will ever interfere essentially with certain 

 classes of economic plants. It is impossible to conceive of a syn- 

 thetic fiber or a synthetic fruit. Chemistry gives us fruit-ethers 

 and fruit-acids, and after a while may provide us with a true arti- 

 ficial sugar and amorphous starch ; but artificial fruits worth the 

 eating or artificial fibers worth the spinning are not coming m 



our day. „ ,i ,• i 



Despite the extraordinary achievements of synthetic chemis- 

 try, the world must be content to accept, for a long time to come, 

 the results of the intelligent labor of the cultivator of the soil 

 and the explorer of the forest. Improvement of the good plants 

 we now utilize, and the discovery of new ones, must remain the 

 care of large numbers of diligent students and assiduous wOTk- 

 men. So that, m fact, our question resolves itself into this : Can 

 these practical investigators hope to make any substantial ad- 

 vance ? . 1 . 1 ^•^^A 

 It will be well to glance first at the manner m which our wild 

 and cultivated plants have been singled out for use. We shall m 

 the case of each class, allude to the methods by which he selected 

 plants have been improved, or their products fully utilized. 

 Thus, looking the ground over, although not minutely, we can see 

 what new plants are likely to be added to our list. Our illustra- 

 tions can, at the best, be only fragmentary. ^ ^. . . , ,, ^ 

 We shall not have time to treat the different divisions of the 

 subject in precisely the proportions which would be demanded by 

 an exhaustive essay; an address on an occasion like this must 

 pass lightly over some matters which other opportunities for dis- 

 cussion could properly examine with great fullness. Unfortunate- 

 ly some of the minor topics which must be thus passed by possess 

 considerable popular interest ; one of these is the first subordinate 

 question introductory to our task, namely. How were our useful 

 cultivated and wild plants selected for use ? 



A study of the early history of plants employed for ceremonial 

 purposes, in religious solemnities, in incantations, and for medici- 



