INTRODUCTORY 3 



(6) Physiology, which treats of the functions of the plant 

 and includes ecology, treating of the activities of the plant in the 

 field, and plant geography, treating of the distribution of plants 

 over the face of the earth. It involves a study of the materials 

 which the plants use in growth and their methods of securing and 

 utilization of them. It also includes a knowledge of the rela- 

 tionship of the plant to its environmental factors; such as soil, 

 water, light, air, temperature and to other organisms. It will be 

 readily seen that any extensive study of plant physiology neces^ 

 sitates a knowledge of chemistry and physics. 



(c) Taxonomy or classification which treats of the grouping 

 of plants with reference to their relationship to each other ; i.e., 

 their similarities and differences. This is one of the oldest 

 divisions of botany and is fundamental for a thorough knowl- 

 edge of any other branch of the subject. The masters of this 

 division of botany have placed, all plants into four large groups 

 (page 7), which have been sub-divided into orders, the orders 

 into families, the families into genera and the genera into spe- 

 cies. A knowledge of this phase of the subject enables the 

 student to determine the name of a plant and its relationship to 

 other plants with comparative ease. 



As an applied science, botany may be divided arbitrarily 

 into the following subjects: (a] Agricultural botany, dealing 

 with the growing of all kinds of agricultural plants. (&) 

 Agronomy, dealing with the production of field crops, (c) Hor- 

 ticulture, dealing with the production of fruit and vegetable 

 crops. (<#) Floriculture, dealing with the production of orna- 

 mental plants, (e) Forestry, dealing with the production, con- 

 servation and utilization of forest and shade trees. (/) Seed 

 testing, dealing with the testing of seeds to determine their purity 



