MODERN APPLICATIONS OF BOTANY 



MEL T. COOK 



New Jersey AgriculUiral Experiment Station 



It is very doubtful if any science is so thoroughly misunderstood 

 by the public as the science of botany. To the average layman it is 

 usually a study of flowers which usually involves harmless collections, 

 classifications and mysterious Latin names; a study for the faddist; 

 a study without applications of any value whatever. It is strange 

 that a subject dealing with organisms upon which we are dependent 

 for practically all of our food, clothing and fuel, a large part of the 

 material for building and the manufacture of useful implements of 

 various kinds, and most of our drug products should be so misunder- 

 stood. Yet, even the educated layman knows more about the Panama 

 canal than he does about wheat, more about flying machines than he 

 does about potatoes, and more about the Woolworth building than 

 he does about cabbage. The names of great and near great military 

 leaders, statesmen, ministers, physicians, architects, theatrical stars, 

 ball players and pugilists are familiar to those millions, while very 

 few can name a single person who has contributed to the feeding and 

 clothing of mankind. In fact, few people* even among the educated 

 classes, realize that agriculture, horticulture and forestry are in reality 

 specialized branches of botany. 



A brief statement of the early history of the subject may ofTer an ex- 

 planation of this anomalous position of our science. Botany had its 

 rise in the development of the medical professions, in the efforts of the 

 practitioner to determine the uses of plants in the art of healing. 

 This resulted in the study of local flora of a number of the most 

 advanced countries and also the search for plants in foreign countries. 

 Very naturally, the great number of species of plants forced these 

 early students to formulate some system of classification whereby 

 their materials might be catalogued. With their increasing knowledge 

 of these species, it became necessary to devise new systems until finally 

 this phase of the subject became all important. In the meantime, 

 the medical profession gradually discontinued the use of the less 

 important of the medicinal plants for those that were most easily 

 obtained, most economical in preparation and most efficacious in 

 use. A little later, we find the physician studying the crude drug and 



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