28 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



Reproduction by Layering in the Balsam Fir and other Coni- 

 fers, by William S. Cooper. (Illustrated.) 



Evaporation and Plant Succession on the Sand Dunes of Lake 

 Michigan, by George D. Fuller. (Illustrated.) 



An American Lepidostrobus, by John M, Coulter and W. J. G. 

 Land. (Illustrated.) 



On motion, duly seconded, the 1911 meeting of the Illinois 

 Academy of Science was adjourned. 



The President's Address 



THE PROBLEMS OF PLANT-BREEDING. 



By John M. Coulter. 



A conspicuous function of such an organization as the State 

 Academy should be the diffusion of knowledge in reference to 

 the subjects called sciences. It is a notable fact that there are as 

 yet no adequate means for this purpose. The public is left to 

 the newspapers and the magazines, and through these channels it 

 is anything but scientific knowledge that is diffused. It is not my 

 purpose to suggest a remedy. We are all too much engaged with 

 our own immediate interests to give this problem the attention it 

 would demand. I have mentioned it simply as an excuse for my 

 subject. 



Perhaps no part of the field I represent has had more misin- 

 formation diffused concerning it than plant-breeding, for it deals 

 very directly with important human interests, and the public has 

 been like an unwary fish in the presence of some flashy arti- 

 ficial bait. Very probably I would not present this topic to a 

 group of botanists, for they are familiar with it ; but my mission 

 here is to represent the botanists before other groups of scien- 

 tific men, and before the public so far as it will give us a hear- 

 ing. 



The science of botany has had a remarkable history. Begin- 

 ning with the investigation of plants for what were called their 

 medicinal virtues, it developed with various progressions and 

 retrogressions, until the botanist came to be regarded as about 

 the most useless intelligent member of society. His chief con- 

 cern seemed to remove him so far from the general human in- 

 terest, that he was regarded as a harmless crank, at best a man 

 only of ephemeral interest. No such opinion could have devel- 



