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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1212 



tual value to mankind overtake and pass 

 it in public esteem and in public support. 

 Does not the fault lie with botanists them- 

 selves? Have they not been too prone to 

 lose themselves in their scientific studies aud 

 to forget or to neglect their human responsi- 

 bilities? Botanists have allowed subjects 

 like bacteriology, agronomy and horticul- 

 ture to struggle up largely unaided and to 

 win independent status so that to-day many 

 specialists in these fields of botanical work 

 do not recognize themselves as botanists 

 and yield no allegiance to the mother sci- 

 ence. It is not so with chemistry. Every 

 worker in the chemical field calls himself a 

 chemist, no matter what his special line may 

 be, and chemistry is written large in public 

 esteem as a great and broad and practical 

 science. On the other hand the average 

 person has little conception of what botany 

 really is, and of its practical value to man- 

 kind. We can not expect the federal and 

 state governments to fully recognize the 

 great value of botanists to the nation when 

 botanists themselves are at a loss to know 

 how they may best serve in this time of 

 crisis, and when they have allowed almost 

 a year of war to pass without taking a 

 prominent professional part in war activi- 

 ties. 



This period of national danger presents 

 to botanists an unrivaled opportunity to 

 win the full recognition our science now 

 lacks, to win it for all time, and also to 

 serve the nation and help win the war, by 

 showing what botanical research and the 

 application of botanical knowledge can do 

 in solving the problems of increased food 

 production. This is our special field and 

 the problems presented to us are so varied 

 that all divisions of botany must take part 

 in the work. 



Time is pressing and the emergency de- 

 mands that we speed up in our output of 

 accomplishment in lines of immediate value 



in the war. This means mobilization of our 

 botanical forces so that all workers capable 

 of rendering assistance may be utilized; it 

 means organization under wise leadership 

 that our efforts may be properly correlated 

 and thus rendered most effective ; it means 

 concentration on the problems most imme- 

 diately important and if necessary the lay- 

 ing aside for the moment of the particular 

 lines of research which now chance to inter- 

 est us, if by so doing we can serve our coun- 

 try more effectively. At this time when we 

 are facing a serious depletion of our ranks 

 due to the call of many of the younger 

 botanists to military service, how essential 

 it is that those of us who are left should see 

 to it that botanical work is not disrupted, 

 that personal and professional interests are 

 laid aside if need be, and that our efforts 

 are wisely coordinated and properly dis- 

 tributed. As an example of the type of co- 

 operative service I believe we should under- 

 take, I shall discuss this afternoon one 

 phase of botanical work now being organ- 

 ized, which aims to assist in increasing the 

 food production of the United States and 

 which is marked by organized cooperation 

 on a large scale. 



Two imperative demands have been 

 made on the American people this year in 

 connection with the food supply. The 

 first of these is — raise more food, increase 

 food production. Dwellers in towns and 

 cities were bidden to enlarge their gardens, 

 and we have responded by spading up our 

 back yards and by plowing vacant lots. 

 There has been much poorly directed effort 

 like that of the patriotic citizen of New 

 Jersey who, after watching his neighbor use 

 a crow bar to make holes for his bean poles, 

 went home and made similar holes into 

 which he dropped his beans and buried 

 them for all time ; yet altogether the back- 

 j'^ard gardens halve materially increased 

 our supply of vegetables. Farmers were 



