— oe 
SOME OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF ECONOMIC BOTANY.* 
3y GEORGE LINCOLN GOODALE. 
The subject which I have selected for the valedictory address deals 
with certain industrial, commercial, and economic questions: neverthe- 
less its ies wholly within the domain of botany. I invite you to ex- 
amine with me some of the possibilities of economic botany. 
Of course, when treating a topic which is so largely speculative as 
this, it is difficult and unwise to draw a hard and fast line between 
possibilities and probabilities. Nowadays possibilities are so often 
realized rapidly that they become accomplished facts before we are 
aware, 
In asking what are the possibilities that other plants than those we 
now use may be utilized we enter upon a many-sided inquiry. Specu- 
lation is rife as to the coming man. May we not ask what plants the 
coming man will use? 
There is an enormous disproportion between the total number of 
species of plants known to botanical science and the number of those 
which are employed by man. 
The species of flowering plants already described and named are about 
107,000. Acquisitions from unexplored or imperfectly explored regions 
may increase the aggregate perhaps one-tenth, so that we are within 
*Presidential address delivered before the American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science, at Washington, August, 1891, from the Proceedings Am. Assoc. Adv. 
Sci., 1891, vol. XL, pp. 1-38; also, the American Journal of Science, October, 1891, vol. 
XLII, pp. 273-303. 
+The following are among the more useful works of a general character, dealing 
with the subject. Others are referred to either in the text or notes. The reader 
may consult also the list of works on Economie Botany in the catalogue published 
by the Linnean Society : 
Select Extra-tropical Plants, readily eligible for industrial culture or naturaliza- 
tion, with indications of their native countries and some of their uses. By Baron 
Fred. von Mueller, K. C. M. G., F. R.S., etc., Government Botanist for Victoria. 
(Melbourne), 1888. Seventh edition, revised and enlarged. At the close of his 
treatise on industrial plants, Baron von Mueller has grouped the genera indicating 
the different classes of useful products in such a manner that we can ascertain the 
respective numbers belonging to the genera. Of course many of these genera figure 
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