| —sCVOLUME XXII | NUMBER 3 
BOTANICAL (;sAZETIE 
2 SEPTEMBER 1896 
4a BOTANICAL OPPORTUNITY." 
WILLIAM TRELEASE. 
In selecting a subject for the first presidential address before 
the Botanical Society of America, which you have done me the 
honor of requiring of me, I have deviated somewhat from the 
Customary lines of such addresses, inasmuch as I have not 
attempted to present an abstract of recent general progress in 
botany, nor any results of my own investigation. Such topics, 
indeed, are more likely than the one I have chosen to interest an 
assemblage of specialists like this society ; but as the society is 
Supposed to haveas a principal object the promotion of research, 
the present has seemed a fitting occasion to address, through the 
Society, the large and growing number of young botanists who 
may be expected to look to this society for a certain amount of 
help and inspiration in the upbuilding of their own scientific 
ss: hence it comes that I have selected as my subject 
: Opportunity.” 
Let us for a moment compare the conditions under which 
Scientific work is done today with those prevalent in the past. 
Tom a purely utilitarian, and, for a time, perhaps almost instinc- 
: knowledge of plants and their properties, beginning, it may 
be, before our race can be said to have had a history, through 
1 
Address of the retiring president, delivered before the Botanical Society of 
6. : 
I 
: America, at Buffalo, N. Y., Aug. 21, 189 
