62 Natural History. 



The relations in such an association are very curious. 

 Ahhoug'h there is a strenuous competition, yet each Hving" 

 creature, whether it be protozoan, g'rass, or rabbit, is at once 

 a servant of and yet ministered to by ah the others. 



You win see that this science, of which Eugen Warming" 

 is the great pioneer, is essentially necessary to farming and 

 forestry. 



Vet those who are now at \\ork on it — Lewis, W. G. 

 Smith, Tansley, Crompton, and a few others — are oblig'ed to 

 carry it on in their leisure hours or in a few brief holidays 

 from exacting professional work. 



In other departments the output of Botanical literature 

 is enormous, indeed appalling. 



Hundreds of keen and eager students are slicing minute 

 ovaries of lilies, cutting sections of fossil spores, working out 

 the anatomy of Cordaites and Spenophyllales, crossing strains 

 of the Telephone pea and of Japanese waltzing mice to the 

 twentieth generation, or covering acres of paper with biometri- 

 cal calculations. I am, of course, thankful that this is the 

 case, but could not, say, one eager student in ten be spared 

 to take up those branches of Botany which are of obvious 

 and direct usefulness to the land industry? 



Most — by far the greater part — of British Botany is of 

 far too recondite and abstruse a character. There is also an 

 increasing tendency for each little group of workers to invent 

 a uselessly elaborate terminology which is practically an 

 esoteric language. 



The result is that each group is cut off from ordinarv 

 educated opinion and from any contact with practical men. 

 Now the advantages of an entente cordiale between the 

 scientist and the man of business is manifest in many other 

 sciences. In physics, chemistry, and geology our industries 

 are prosperous and up-to-date, and in those branches our 

 Scientific Authorities are equal to the best in the world. 

 Practical touch of Theory with Practice has led to astonishing 

 results in bacteriology and parasitism. Here again, amongst 

 the pioneers, Britain is well represented by Lister and Dr 

 Manson. The malarial-mosquito discoveries have, in fact, 



