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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1369 



methods of researcli developed in the labora- 

 tories hardly apply at all to the pro'blems of 

 plant culturist, a fact that the laiboratory men 

 have scarcely appreciated, and which has led 

 them into a mental attitude disparaging toward 

 the methods of the agronomist and horticul- 

 turist. It is not insignificant that the discov- 

 eries of Mendel, of Helriegel and Wilfarth. 

 of Garner and AUard were made possible by 

 problems revealed in the culture of plants and 

 all were solved by the simplest of methods. 

 Koelreuter's work in hybridization was largely 

 inspired by his knowledge of garden plants, 

 and was promptly utilized by horticulturists 

 though ignored by botanists. One may well 

 doubt wihether laboratory botanists could ever 

 have detected the meaning of the dance of the 

 chromosomes; though I am not unaware that 

 there were dim guesses as to wha/t they might 

 signify even before the revelations of modern 

 Mendelism. 



One of the phrases too often seen in print is 

 " revolution in agriculture." The expression 

 is almost purely rhetorical and not a state- 

 ment of fact or even of approximation. In 

 most cases large changes in agriculture have 

 been due to very simple things, usually the in- 

 troduction of a new crop or the sudden expan- 

 sion of an old one. Witness alfalfa in the 

 west, sorghum.s in the southwest, rubber in 

 Malaya, the sugar beet in Europe, the increase 

 of cotton in the south following the invention 

 of the cotton gin. I can recall nothing of 

 comparable effeot on agriculture resultant from 

 a discovery in a botanical laboratory. It may 

 be argued, truly enough, that the knowledge 

 of bacteria has revolutionized modern medi- 

 cine; but the credit for this advance can 

 scarcely be claimed by botanists. Botany 

 seems truly to have neglected its splendid op- 

 portunities in its adherence to the fetich of 

 pure science. 



It may be well to caution that in any at- 

 tempt to unify botany and plant culture, the 

 word botany will exercise no hypnotic influ- 

 ence. Eightly or wrongly the word does not 

 convey to the public mind something highly 

 desirajble and useful. To the ordinary man a 

 botanist is a more or less queer individual 



who goes about with a tin box over his shoulder 

 collecting plants. Perhaps this had something 

 to do with the loss of caste of taxonomy among 

 botanists. It may be questioned, however, if 

 the whittling of paraffine seotions, or the use 

 of strange apparatus in the woods and marshes, 

 or the growing of fungi in test tubes will lead 

 to a profoundly different evaluation of botany. 



I trust that any frankness of expression that 

 I have indulged in will not be interpreted as 

 iU-will, but that it will be regarded as an effort 

 to clear away the mist and to bring about 

 better understanding. Much that has been 

 written on the general subject seems to carry 

 the impression that plant culturiats' have a 

 stolidity that partakes of the ox, and do not 

 wince at the reflections that come from the 

 pens of botanists. It may be well to dispel 

 any such assumption, which in my judgment 

 has done incalculable harm to botany. 



The points of my thesis are virtually three : 

 (1) that our knowledge of plantt culture is to 

 a very large extent still almost purely empir- 

 ical; (2) that there has been a lamentable 

 tendency to consider plant culture and its 

 methods of study as something apart from 

 botany and not worthy of so high respect; and 

 (3) that there has been pTOueness to claim for 

 botany as well as for chemistry an undue 

 amount of merit for what they have conltrib- 

 uted to agriculture. 



I have, I believe, as much faith as any one 

 in the services that plant science can render to 

 mankind, and that not by furnishing bread 

 alone. There is need, however, of broadening 

 our vision and ideals, of freeing ourselves 

 from any caste feeling, of recognizing that the 

 human race is at least as much interested in 

 food and food production as it is in the fate 

 of the synergids, the origin of the angiosperms, 

 or Hhe genes of Capsella. For the good of all 

 of us there is every reason to bring about a 

 closer , union of the societies interested in 

 plants and their culture. Such a union will 

 without doubt lead to better mutual under- 

 gtanding and reciprocal sympathy. At least 

 we shall learn that mtist conventional botan- 

 ists as well as plant eulturists are, after all, to 



