Section C— BACTERIOLOGY, BOTANY, ZOOLOGY, 

 AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY, PHYSIOLOGY, HY- 

 GIENE AND SANITARY SCIENCE. 



President of the Section : J. Burtt-Davv, F.L.S., F.R.G.S. 



WEDNESDAY, JULY 4. 



The President delivered the followins: address : — 



t> 



PROPOSAL FOR AN ORGANIZED BOTANICAL 

 SURVEY OF SOUTH AFRICA.* 



Faced directly or indirectly with war conditions, civilized 

 countries are surveying their industrial resources to see wherein 

 they can use materials of local production to replace those for- 

 merly imported, but now obtainable only with difficulty if at 

 all. To attain the desired end such surveys must necessarily 

 cover the whole field, including agriculture, commerce, science, 

 arts and manufactures, from the finished product back to the 

 raw material, be it animal, vegetable or mineral. 



The object of this paper is to call attention to the desira- 

 bility of including a botanical survey in a general survey of the 

 natural resources of the country, and to suggest ways and means 

 for carrying it out under existing conditions. 



While it is true that a large part of the raw material of 

 commerce, of vegetable origin, is no longer obtained from the 

 wild plants of field or forest, but from strains improved by 

 selection or by cross-breeding, and carefully grown under culti- 

 vation, there is always the possibility of discovering new plants 

 of economic value in a country which has not been well explored 

 l)otanicalIy. This is particularly the case with such articles as 

 fodder plants for stock, fibre i)lants, dye and tan plants, oil seeds, 

 medicinal ])lants, rubbers and timbers. 



But a still more important and useful purpose of a botani- 

 cal survey is the determination of the soil and climatic features 

 of a locality from the character and distribution of its native 

 vegetation. This branch of botanical science is of particular 

 importance in new and thinly settled countries, and may be the 

 means of saving the prospective settler from great financial loss, 

 and in some cases even from ruin. 



What other Countries are Doing. 



The public recognition of the practical value of the survey 

 of a country is not new. The Indian Government began such a 

 survey of India many years ago, employing trained scientific 



* As originall}^ presented to the meetinpr, the address referred to a 

 biological sun'ey. Owing to requirements of space the author decided 

 to print only the main portion, which related to the botanical survey. 



