PREFACE xxiii 



be an opportunity foi' several teaching and investigational professions in the 

 realm now known as botany. I should not be surprised if we should give up 

 the term botanist as designating the occupant of a professorship. There is 

 now a tendency to return to unit courses in biology, with special biologists 

 employed in various phases of the subject. Of these special biologists, the 

 horticulturist will be one of the remoter groups, connecting plant biology with 

 the affairs of men. 



But even so, there must be horticulturists and horticulturists; and I 

 doubt whether the term horticulturist will long persist in highly developed 

 schemes of education and investigation. There will be fruit-growing horti- 

 culturists, flower-growing horticulturists, nursery -growing horticulturists, and 

 others. The manufacturing interests will be segregated, such as canning 

 industries, manufacture of fruit wines and juices and the like, as dairy 

 manufacture has now been separated from animal husbandry. 



I once edited a cyclopedia of horticulture. I do not know that it has left 

 any impression on the mind of the very select public that chanced to hear of 

 it; but the one strong impression that it left on my mind is its heterogeneous- 

 ness. The most perplexing problem in its preparation was what to include. 

 No doubt the reader is impressed with what might have been omitted. My 

 own conclusion was that we should never see another large cyclopedia of 

 horticulture; for such a work marks an unspecialized age. 



Just how the field will divide itself in the colleges and experiment 

 stations it is yet too early to predict. As the reason for its division rests on 

 its touch with affairs, and as affairs differ in every great geographical region, 

 I see no reason why it should divide everywhere into identical parts. In New 

 Yoi'k we need a professor of pomology ; another of jilant propagation ; another 

 of greenhouse business; another of ornamental gardening; another of seed- 

 growing, drawing from both agriculture and horticulture; another of fruit 

 manufacture. 



Horticulture is contributing greatly to the national wealth. It supplies 

 much important food; but these foods are to a large extent non-necessities, 

 and their increasing use is a good criterion of the development of our civiliza- 

 tion, — for the progress of the refinement of civilization is marked by the 

 transferal of articles from the class of occasional luxuries to the class of 

 essentials. Practically all the fruits, particulai'ly in temperate climates, belong 

 to the class of non-necessitous foods; yet their consumption is increasing with 

 enormous rapidity. All the growth of floriculture and of ornamental garden- 

 ing — largely the work of one generation — stands in a very intimate relation 



