Preface* 



|T has been well said that the main difficulties with the book on popular 

 science are that, if popular, it will not be scientific, and, if scientific, it 

 will not be popular. Yet, notwithstanding the truth thus epigrammatically 

 expressed, I am venturing to put forth Minnesota Plant Life as a book 

 certainly meriting the designation of popular, in so far as it is addressed to an 

 audience not composed of botanists, and at the same time scientific, to the extent at 

 least of choosing for its field one of the two great realms of living things the king- 

 dom of plants. 



While to be out of fashion is to be out of the world, I have, nevertheless, resisted 

 the impulse to designate this volume as a suitable text-book for the "secondary 

 schools." On the contrary, such a use of it would be, in my opinion, distinctly un- 

 fortunate. It is not written in pedagogical vein, nor does it pre-suppose an acquaint- 

 ance with teachers and laboratories. It would, however, be disingenuous to deny 

 that the author has a definite educational purpose in view. Since this volume is to 

 be distributed in every county and perhaps in every school district in Minnesota, it 

 should, especially among the young, stimulate an interest in the study of plants. 

 With a minimum of technicalities, sentimentalities, unavoidable inaccuracies or cum- 

 bersome details, it seeks to accomplish the following ends: 



1. The plant world is presented as an assemblage of living things. 



2. The different kinds of plants in Minnesota, from the lowest to the highest, 

 are briefly reviewed in their natural order. 



3. Some plant structures and behaviors are elementarily explained, as adapta- 

 tions to surrounding nature. 



4. Certain plant individuals and societies are brought before the reader as hav- 

 ing life problems of their own, not as mere material for economic, anatomical or 

 classificatory industry. 



In short, I have recognized that there are in Minnesota a number of intelligent 

 men and women, boys and girls, who wish to know more about plants, and in the 

 pages of this book I have sought to bring together what, from my own experience as 

 a student of plants, and as an instructor of the young, seems to me a sufficiently 

 adequate and compact presentation of the subject. Errors of judgment and of fact no 

 doubt exist, as in many works of mere human construction. I hope that they will 

 not prove harmful. In some matters, indeed, the point of view has shifted since cer- 

 tain chapters were in type. For example, experiments recently completed by the 

 United States Department of Agriculture tend to modify the German and Danish ex- 



