232 
use than is at present the case. As was pointed out at the 
beginning of this paper, the uses of the wild plants of any 
country to primitive man were fully made out in early times, 
but there seems no reason to suppose that with the increasing 
complexity of modern life many new uses will not be found, 
both for these and for plants not hitherto recognised as valuable: 
and it should be part of the work of a botanic garden to 
make accurate investigations into the properties of the local 
parts. 
The vegetable physiologist must obviously not merely attend 
to the local flora, but must study vegetable physiology in a 
perfectly general way, with the aid of the collections in the 
botanic gardens, and the laboratories and libraries there to 
attached. By the study of the problems of nutrition, growth 
and reproduction we may hope that much light will be thrown 
upon agricultural questions, and that progress in the study of 
these will be rendered more rapid. But the physiologist must 
not be tied down to the study of problems of immediate agri- 
cultural interest, though he should not neglect these. Unless 
his investigations are general, he will net arrive at general 
laws, and progress in the long run will be delayed. 
The systematic study of the fungi, of their life-historiesand 
reproduction, of their parasitism and the modes of checking 
their growth and spread, and other matters connected with 
them, is proving in recent times to be of great importance 
for progress in agriculture. A mycologist has become an in- 
dispensable officer in the working of a modern department. 
Great progress has been made in the study of diseases and 
modes of treatment, and in some countries we have even 
arrived at the stage of legislation for their compulsory treatment. 
Plant-breeding on scientific lines, which has recently come 
into great prominence through the rediscovery of MeEnpEL’s 
work, and the vigorous prosecution of researches in this line 
by Barrson, Breren, Lock, Macpoveau. and others, is another 
very important direction into which the capabilities for research 
of the staff of a garden, and its own resources in material and 
