AGRICULTURAL BOTANY, CHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF PLANTS 1 423 



ning of the experiment, a further examination for nodules was carried out. 

 By this time all the plots contained lucerne rhizobia. 

 From Table I it will be seen that : 



i) The method of artificial inoculation with cultures of lucerne 

 rhizobia are far from being as efficient nodule producers as the inoculation 

 with soil of the same composition as the land being treated. 



2) Inoculation with rhizobia from a legume other than lucerne is 

 ineffective when used with the latter crop. 



3) The addition of lime greatly increases the nodule forming power. 

 Whereas these deductions are in full accord with those of other investi- 

 gators, the present experiments gave results different from those obtained 

 in other parts of the world as regards jdeld. In Table II mil be found the 

 figures for the 1913-14 and 1914-15 harvestings from which it is evident 

 that inoculation had a depressing effect on the yield when used alone or in 

 conjunction with lime or complete manures. 



1065 - The Application of Botanical Science to Agriculture. — Howard Albert (im- 

 perial Economic Botanist, Pusa) in The Agricultural Journal of India, Special Indian 

 Science Congress Number pp. 14-26. Calcutta and London, 1916. 



A Study of the literature dealing with agriculture indicates that there 

 is some confusion of ideas as to the precise relation which exists between 

 the science of botany on the one hand and the practice of agriculture on the 

 other. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to define the bear- 

 ing of the scientific aspect of the vegetable kingdom on the economic de- 

 velopment of crop production- and to show how a knowledge of this science 

 can best be applied to agricultural problems. For an}'- real advance to be 

 made in crop-production, a thorough scientific knowledge of botany in all 

 its branches is one of the fijst conditions of progress. This will be clear if the 

 real problems to be solved are considered in all their bearings. 



The attempt to improve cultivated crops by scientific methods is a re- 

 cent development and can be traced to two main causes — (i) the gradual 

 recognition of the fact that in agriculture the plant is the centre of the sub- 

 ject ; and (2) the rapid rise of the study of genetics which followed the re- 

 discovery of Mendel's results in inheritance. 



The importance of the plant in crop production may be said to be gen- 

 erally recognized at the present time. A large number of botanists are 

 being employed at Experiment Stations and the public have often been 

 led to expect that a revolution is about to take place, particvilarly through 

 the application of what is popularly known as Mendelism. A critical exa- 

 mination of the literature discloses some signs that these extravagant 

 hopes are not likely to be fulfilled, not that these hopes are impossible but 

 rather because the problems have not always been taken up on a sufficiently 

 broad basis and attacked simultaneously from several standpoints. 



II. The Development oj Botany. 



The more recent developments in botanical science are fortunately 

 all tending to a study of the plant as a living whole. Both the scientific study 

 in the field of plant associations (ecology) and the s\-stematic examination 

 of the various generations of plants rai.sed from parents which breed true 



ACKICULXrK.VL 



BOTANY. 



CHEMISTRY 



AND 

 PIIVSIOLOGY 

 OF PLANTS 



