BOTANY 



WHAT is the content and scope of the science of botany? 

 Popular opinion will answer somewhat easily: Botany 

 consists in the gathering of plants, and the dismembering 

 of them, in connection with the use of a complicated ter- 

 minology. That is the beginning and end of botany as it 

 is understood by the majority; there is nothing more to 

 be said. In consequence, the employment of the botanist 

 seems so trivial, so very remote from important human 

 interests that no second thought is given to it. The con- 

 ception formed in ignorance is continued in ignorance. 

 Even the zoologist is at an advantage, for the public is 

 finally forced to admit that it does not know what he is 

 about, while it understands the botanist very well. He is 

 quite hopeless, for, while flowers may be pretty things to 

 pick, they should not be pulled to pieces, and if he does not 

 happen to be interested in dissecting flowers he is not a 

 botanist but simply a fraud. 



Far from being remote, the study of plants comes very 

 close to human interests. One has but to stop to think 

 that plants are the great energy source for man himself 

 and the animals upon which his well-being depends, to 

 recognize that a careful study of their manner of life, the 

 conditions which favor or hinder their growth is of the 

 very first importance. Besides this, human curiosity de- 

 mands that plants be investigated, if for no other reason 

 than that they must be made to yield answers to the per- 



5 



