IILG, 
The intimate interlocking of botanical science with the 
science of agriculture and allied applied sciences is well illus- 
trated in the work of our admirably organized Bureau of Plant 
Industry, and certain other subdivisions of the United States 
Department of Agriculture. Here, one group of botanists ex- 
plores the drier regions of the West, and seeks to find in the 
study of the native plants of those regions the principles which 
shall enable us better to understand dry farming; others explore 
the world for new plants, particularly for those likely to be of 
use for human or animal food. Still others apply the principles 
of plant physiology, or those of soil physics, to the ultimate end 
of how to raise better crops. A rapidly increasing number of 
botanists, both of the Department of Agriculture as well as of 
state experiment stations, are plant pathologists, who study the 
diseases of plants and their cure. Another growing group are 
the plant breeders, who seek in their studies the laws underlying 
heredity, as well as the best way to apply these principles to the 
production of better and more useful plants. 
Drug plants are now studied from various points of view 
by highly trained botanists. Some specialists, the pharmacog- 
nosists, study the gross and microscopical characters of medic- 
inal plants; others are food and drug analysts; still others study 
the poisonous or other chemical characteristics of these plants. 
Another division of economic botanists studies the food and 
fiber plants and their characteristics; still another, the forage 
possibilities of cacti, of native wild grasses, or of other plants. 
That subdivision of botanical science known as_horticul- 
ture deals with the principles underlying the cultivation of trees, 
shrubs, and garden plants; forestry, with those underlying the 
propagation of forests and the economic production of lumber. 
Gardening proper, as well as certain subdivisions of agronomy, 
or field agriculture, is based at heart largely on the principles 
of plant physiology and soil physics. 
Among the highly specialized applied sciences which have 
split off far from pure botany is bacteriology, which had its 
start with the work of Pasteur and Koch. The bacteriologist 
in recent years has begun to extend his studies even beyond the 
minute plants called bacteria, so as to include in his investiga- 

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