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produced in Brooklyn in 1927 was nearly $47,300,000. The foun- 
dation of this industry is the wheat crop and other, cereal grain 
crops. The success of these crops depends upon the work of the 
plant breeder and the plant pathologist. Without the modern 
varieties of grain, grown under the present conditions of plant 
disease control, the figures for the annual value of the baking 
industry (not to mention all the industries that intervene between 
the wheat field and the loaf of bread) would be materially less 
and the cost of bread would be correspondingly higher. The 
indebtedness is directly to botany. 
Food preparations manufactured in Brooklyn in 1927 had 
value of nearly $23,000,000; confectionery, of over $17,000,000. 
The cost of sugar and the consequent percentage of profit in 
the confectionery business rests in large part on the perfection 
of the sugar beet by the plant breeder, who increased its sugar 
content from seven per cent. to 16 per cent. for commercial stock. 
To obtain this result required a knowledge of the structure of 
flowers, the functions of their, various parts, and other purely 
botanical matters. Plant pathology and plant breeding have now 
become vital factors in connection with the growing of sugar 
cane. ‘The confectionery business, and in fact the whole sugar 
industry, is founded upon the science of botany. 
Electrical ‘machinery, apparatus, and supplies manufactured 
in Brooklyn in 1927 had a value of nearly $31,000,000. The en- 
tire electrical industry, and every other industry involving the 
use of rubber (the entire automobile industry, for example) is 
chiefly dependent for its supply of rubber on the product of trees 
raised at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, from seeds collected 
in Brazil in 1875. 
IXconomic advantage is not the most powerful argument for 
the support of scientific research, but the fact that botanical in- 
vestigations do yield results of the highest importance to com- 
merce and industry places the business world (even in its own 
interest) under definite obligations to support such investigations. 
Statistics recently published by the United States Chamber of 
Commerce record the fact that American manufacturers are now 
spending $35,000,000 annually for research, and that $500,000,000 
is saved each year as a result. All of this advantage rests ul- 
