BOTANY. 



91 



Braun, Brongniart, Schleiden, Schwann, De- 

 caisne, Benthara, and Darwin have but re- 

 cently passed away. The center of activity in 

 this new field of botany, even from its be- 

 ginning, has been Germany, although France 

 and England, in fewer instances, have pro- 

 duced some of the most widely known names. 

 The quality of German laboratories, methods, 

 and teachers has steadily improved, even to 

 the present time, until a scientific atmosphere 

 has been created, in which the bearing and 

 value of the new work constantly being brought 

 out are at once recognized, and are discussed 

 by means of the numerous botanical publica- 

 tions of that country. In physiological bot- 

 any, the most difficult field, and the one to- 

 day presenting the greater number of unsolved 

 problems, the Germans are far in advance of 

 other nations in the equipment of their labo- 

 ratories and in the results of their investiga- 

 tions. With delicate instruments, in some cases 

 constructed for a particular series of experi- 

 ments, they bring to their aid physical and 

 chemical investigations, and the spectroscope 

 and polarizing apparatus are important ad- 

 juncts in modern work. Although it may be 

 said that the botanical work of Charles Dar- 

 win, the most profound and at the same time 

 the most brilliant single performance of the 

 century, should be classed under this head, 

 still the scientific men of all nations admit that 

 for biological and physiological work their 

 students must turn to Germany for their meth^ 

 ods, their inspiration, and, for some time to 

 come, their most valuable results. 



In the United States, during the first centu- 

 ry of national existence, which was devoted 

 to pioneer work and the accumulation of 

 wealth, and near its close to the prosecution 

 of a tremendous civil war, the cultivation of 

 this new field, little known and difficult of 

 access, was almost entirely neglected. The 

 work in systematic botany, especially during 

 the last quarter of that century, was consider- 

 able and always of a high character, being per- 

 formed by a few very able men, as Gray, Tor- 

 rey, Engelmann, Watson, Sullivant, Tucker- 

 man, and Harvey. But the scope of school 

 and college instruction, where instruction in bot- 

 any could be had, was wholly controlled by the 

 above-mentioned fact, as the text-books were 

 written and the instruction given by men who 

 were specialists in, or mere students of, system- 

 atic botany. The work done by pupils was, 

 therefore, from one point of view, dealing 

 mainly with the external characters of the 

 higher plants. 



In 1868 was published the first German edi- 

 tion of Sachs's ' Lehrbuch der Botanik." Its 

 author was one of the leading physiologists of 

 Germany, a professor at the University of 

 Wurzburg, and he brought together in his 

 text-book, in a masterly manner, the scattered 

 results in anatomy, physiology, and morphol- 

 ogy of plants, of forty years of investigation by 

 the acute intellects of Germany, France, and 



England. This first successful attempt at an 

 orderly arrangement of a treasury of rich but 

 unclassified material was greeted with expres- 

 sions of great satisfaction. In 1875 an Eng- 

 lish translation of this work was made by A. 

 W. Bennett. It was an imperial octavo of 860 

 pages, and was after the third German edition 

 (that of 1873), as was the French translation 

 by Van Tieghem. But a fourth German edition 

 had been published in 1874, and Mr. 8. H. 

 Vines has made a translation of this, which 

 was published in 1882, with annotations and 

 additions to bring it down to date. The first 

 English edition of Sachs opened to the whole 

 class of younger English - speaking botanists 

 an unfamiliar field, attractive from the admi- 

 rable work already done, stimulating in the 

 unexplored regions presented, and it came at 

 a favorable moment. The national Govern- 

 ment had at last turned its attention to national 

 education, or to one feature of it, by establish- 

 ing in the several States, through public-land 

 grants, colleges where agriculture and other 

 sciences should be taught. This caused an in- 

 creased demand about 1870 for instruction in 

 botany and kindred sciences. At about the 

 same time with the publication of the English 

 edition of Sachs's Text-Book of Botany, Har- 

 vard University, which has always fostered the 

 science with a more liberal spirit than any 

 other institution in America, expanded a de- 

 partment, already made eminent by the pres- 

 ence of Dr. Asa Gray, by the appointment of 

 several assistant professors : In Physiology and 

 Morphology, Prof. G. S. Goodale ; in Crypto- 

 gamic Botany, Prof. "W. G. Farlow, who was 

 fresh from studies with two of the leading in- 

 vestigators of Europe, De Bary and Thuret ; 

 in Arboriculture, Prof. C. S. Sargent. All of 

 these gentlemen have since been' made full 

 professors, and to-day stand at the head of their 

 special departments in America. Mr. Sereno 

 Watson, an eminent systematic botanist, has 

 the appointment of Curator of the Harvard 

 University Herbarium, and besides Dr. Gray 

 and the above-named, there are several assist- 

 ants in botanical work. This generous treat- 

 ment of the science by Harvard attracted as 

 pupils the younger American botanists and 

 teachers who were seeking improved methods 

 of instruction, especially in the newer fields. 

 Here, with excellent collections, a compara- 

 tively rich library, skilled instructors, and 

 original investigators, something like the uni- 

 versity instruction of Europe was first offered 

 to American students. The influence of Har- 

 vard and its professors on the development of 

 botany in America has been very great, and is 

 proved not only by the large amount of origi- 

 nal work done there, but in the less evident 

 but enduring effect of practical laboratory train- 

 ing and the stimulus of example. 



Another work published in 1874 has had a 

 considerable share in shaping instruction in 

 the new field of plant biology, and has been 

 used especially as a practical model by many 



