32 TENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 
botanical science, and especially in pathology should have 
passed without much consideration by a great number 
whose interests and training lead them to look elsewhere. 
What has been stated has been offered in the spirit of 
friendly suggestion and with no desire to misstate or mis- 
apply the facts as they now exist. Should this appear to 
have been done it will be my greatest pleasure to make cor- 
rections. 
It is quite generally recognized at the present day that 
some of the brilliant hopes of the chemist respecting im- 
provement in plant growth, have failed of realization, and 
that after all the sciences which deal with living things 
have their problems worthy the most competent and best 
equipped of our scientists. The chemist will now admit 
that mere chemical analysis of the plant substance gives 
no adequate knowledge whereby we may solve the vexing 
problems of plant nutrition, valuable and helpful as the 
analysis has been. We, as botanists, are justified in the 
faith that our beloved science is at last to come into pos- 
session of her full heritage of problems as well as oppor- 
tunities. Certainly the unrivaled development of Amer- 
ican botany in recent years justifies a faith of this sort. 
I have thus with hasty preparation, and as I am well 
aware, very imperfectly as to result, taken this much of 
your valuable time in discussing what appears clearly to 
me to be the larger possibilities of the Future of Vegetable 
Pathology. 
Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Wooster, Ohio, 
November, 1900. 
