620 SOME OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF ECONOMIC BOTANY. 
giving us artificial dyes, odors, flavors, and medicinal substances, of 
such excellence that it sometimes seems as if before long the old-fash- 
ioned chemical processes in the plant itself would play only a subordi- 
nate part. But although there is no telling where the triumphs of 
chemical synthesis will end, it is not probable that it will ever interfere 
essentially with certain classes of economic plants. It is impossible to 
conceive of a synthetic fiber or a synthetic fruit. Chemistry gives us 
fruit ethers and fruit acids, and after a while may provide us witha 
true artificial sugar and amorphous starch; but artificial fruits worth 
the eating, or artificial fibers worth the spinning, are not coming in our 
day. 
Despite the extraordinary achievements of synthetic chemistry, the 
world must be content to accept, for a long time to come, the results of 
the intelligent labor of the cultivator of the soil and the explorer of the 
forest. Improvement of the good plants we now utilize, and the dis- 
covery of new ones, must remain the care of large numbers of diligent 
students and assiduous workmen. So that in fact our question re- 
solves itself into this: Can these practical investigators hope to make 
any substantial advance? P 
It will be well to glance first at the manner in which our wild and 
cultivated plants have been singled out for use. We shall, in the case 
of each class, allude to the methods by which the selected plants have 
been improved, or their products fully utilized. Thus looking the ground 
over, although not minutely, we can see what new plants are likely to 
be added to our list. Our illustrations can at the best be only frag- 
mentary. 
We shall not have time to treat the different divisions of the subject 
in precisely the proportions which would be demanded by an exhaust- 
ive essay; an address on an occasion like this must pass lightly over 
some matters which other opportunities for discussion could properly 
examine with great fulness. Unfortunately, some of the minor topics 
which must be thus passed by possess considerable popular interest; 
one of these is the first subordinate question introductory to our task, 
namely, how were our useful cultivated and wild plants selected for 
use? 
A study of the early history of plants employed for ceremonial pur- 
poses, in religious solemnities, in incantations, and for medicinal uses, 
shows hew slender has sometimes been the claim of certain plants to 
the possession of any real utility. But some of the plants which have 
been brought to notice in these ways have afterwards been found to be 
utilizable in some fashion or other. This is often seen in the cases of 
the plants which have been suggested for medicinal use through the 
absurd doctrine of signatures.* 
It seems clear that except in modern times useful plants have been 
selected almost wholly by chance, and it may well be said that a selec- 
* The Folk-Lore of Plants. By T. F. Thiselton Dyer. 1889. 
