xxii PREFACE 



Agriculture has divided by fissiou into a half dozen or more organisms, 

 and each of these now shows signs of further segmentation. If pigs, cows, 

 horses, machinery, underdrains, and field crops lack pedagogical and scientific 

 harmony, what shall we say of orchids, onions, oranges, greenhouses, canning 

 factories, cover-crops, plant- breeding, landscape gardening and cold storage? 

 What is horticulture ? 



Although horticulture touches affairs at every point, it is primarily a 

 biological subject. It rests on a knowledge of plants. Its fundamental rela- 

 tionship, therefore, is with botany. Its biological i^hase is botany; its busi- 

 ness phase is agriculture. Botany, however, has declined until recently to 

 extend its sphere to subjects that come too near to real human affairs, and 

 therefore has left a very large part of its domain uncultivated. Horticulture 

 has seized some of this territory. It should hold the territory. 



Botany has not been alone in holding itself aloof from subjects that are 

 made unclean by serving a direct purpose in the lives of men. All academic 

 subjects have considered themselves worthy in proportion as they serve no 

 concrete purpose. We even yet speak of "pure science," as if some science 

 were impure. It is curious that subjects sought by human minds and hands 

 are not "pure" when they sei've those minds and hands in the affairs of life. 

 Howbeit, a working and practicable knowledge of plants must be had by those 

 who engage in the developing of plant industries. A few days ago I saw a 

 professor of botany in a commercial greenhouse, asking the florist many ques- 

 tions about the growth and behavior of plants. I asked him why. He replied, 

 "Those men know more real plant physiology than we do." Those men were 

 horticulturists. 



I have not the least desire to confine any person's efforts to so-called 

 "applied science." On the other hand, I have no desire to confine it to "pure 

 science." I object to the classification of the ideas and to what this classifi- 

 cation connotes. All knowledge is knowledge. 



Botany must escape its integuments of the laboratory and find part of its 

 sphere in the field and the garden and on the farm. This is precisely the 

 trend of its development to-day. Yet so great practical knowledge of plant- 

 growing is required for this work that it would seem to demand the skill of 

 one who is trained as a plantsman as well as an investigator. Horticulture 

 would seem to stand in some such relation to botany as electrical and other 

 engineering stands to physics. The engineer must be somewhat of a physicist, 

 but he must also be an engineer. The multiplicity of botanical subjects and 

 the intricacy of subject-matter are inci'easing with great rapidity. There will 



