EDITORIALS. 
IN THE admirable address on Botanical opportunity delivered by 
Dr. Trelease before the Botanical Society of America, already published 
in this journal, and also separately distributed, occurs 
a paragraph on equipment of laboratories for physiolog- 
ical botany which is capable of misapplication. Owing 
to the expensiveness of such an equipment and the attention required 
to keep it in order, the suggestion is made that it should be bought in 
moderation ; probably a superfluous suggestion, if one may judge by the 
condition of American laboratories at the present time. The closing 
sentence of the paragraph (ante, page 201), however, contains the only 
point to which exception need be taken. It embodies the old and 
pernicious idea, very prevalent when laboratories were a novelty, that 
the pupil, the student, will get the most from his study when he makes 
for himself the implements and devices needed in his work. The 
“history of the most successful physiological iaboratories,” when they 
are old enough to have passed out of their formative stage, will 
undoubtedly be that of all the other laboratory sciences. At first 
instruments are made by the worker, after a time expensive and more 
or less unsatisfactory instruments are bought, finally good instruments 
at areasonable price are obtainable and preferred. “Simple apparatus 
designed to meet the precise needs of the problem” is a matter of 
evolution, and at the present day the problem in physiology is often very 
crudely worked for want of apparatus that has had thought expended 
upon it, and become the product of the << mechanical skill. 
Equipment 
for Physiology 
Ir WILL BE noticed from Professor MacDougal s “open letter” in i 
this number that he accepts, at the suggestion of the Gazerre, the 
responsible duty of organizing the commission which 
Tropical shall visit various ee Oe 
aboratory _view to select a suitable site for a botanical laboratory. 
Arle: idan alan cheney iad abet progress has been 
—— inspection of sites by the commis- 
| sion is assure _ The subsequer blishment of _ station seems 
