TRANSACTIONS 



BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 



SESSION LXXVI. 



Presidential Address. — Some Modern Aspects of 

 Applied Botany. By A. W. Borthwick, D.Sc 



All progress of nations and increase in population is 

 preceded by the discovery of some new natural resource 

 or by a new use of a previously known one. Science is 

 the working force which leads to increase of knowledge 

 and industrial progress. Industries increase, but natural 

 resources are in danger of exhaustion. The average man 

 demands more and more, and his needs increase with 

 civilisation and industrial progress ; hence at the present 

 day he must study, investigate, and learn how to utilise 

 the natural resources with the greatest economy ; and as 

 man demands more from Nature, she in turn demands 

 more from man. He must learn how to care for his crops 

 more scientifically, to increase their yield, and also to 

 conserve and improve the soil. In what way can the 

 natural resources be best and most economically utilised ? 

 ' The obvious answer is by studying them in a scientific 

 V^ manner in order that we may learn how to utilise them in 

 \ a scientific way. In the realms of science botan} T stands 

 ^out pre-eminently as the science which comes into the 

 most intimate contact with the fundamental problems of 

 life and living things. It is at the same time the science 

 which lends itself most readily to practical application in 

 many economic directions. Plants may be studied in a 



TRANS. BOT. SOC. EDIN. VOL. XXVI. 1 



