NovEMBER 22, 1918] 
Economic botany will make its demands 
wherever in the course appropriate connections 
can be made. Its importance is evident but it 
can hardly hope for much opportunity of con- 
secutive treatment. 
Of direct interest will be some of the lower 
plants in their relation to the subjects of sani- 
tation, hygiene, fermentation, decay and to 
disease. 
Finally such a course will miss an end, if the 
student fails to comprehend some of the simpler 
principles of organic evolution and the funda- 
mental biological deductions which have so 
profoundly affected philosophy. 
This is the general nature of the course to be 
tried out in our numerous institutions of 
higher education, and it seems not unreason- 
able to hope that the experiment may bring 
about a certain amount of agreement in the 
profession as to what may constitute the best 
introductory course in botany. Some possible 
results of the experiment and the discussions 
that formally or informally will come out may 
be briefly outlined. 
Is it not probable that comparative morphol- 
ogy, based on type studies and having for its 
end the outlining of evolutionary relationships 
between the great groups of plants, must give 
way in introductory treatments and work out 
its ends through courses that will follow? 
Physiology and ecology in simple form may 
take a more prominent place, especially as they 
bear on such practical subjects as agriculture, 
forestry, etc. Fundamental principles of ge- 
netics for the same reasons will call for atten- 
tion besides having their obvious connection 
with broad biological principles. Evolution 
may be treated not so much as a record of past 
accomplishments in phylogenetic history but 
with respect to the manner through which it is 
ever working. Economic botany seems certain 
to make important demand on the content of 
an introductory course. 
Comparative morphology needs no advocate 
of its value and interest. Its followers may feel 
confident in the security of its position in bot- 
any. Those who teach it know that satisfactory 
results are not obtained when the subject is 
crowded for time. There are no short cuts to 
SCIENCE 
515 
an understanding of morphological relation- 
ships. The basis of study must be detailed and 
thorough laboratory work. It is a fair ques- 
tion whether comparative morphology will not 
find greater satisfaction and obtain better re- 
sults unfettered from the time limitations of 
the crowded introductory course with its neces- 
sarily mixed topics. 
Morphology, physiology, ecology, genetics 
and the long list of special botanical subjects— 
none of them can hope to build upon an intro- 
ductory course with any considerable degree of 
security. Each must construct its program ac- 
cording to its own special requirements fre- 
quently dependent upon other subjects or sci- 
ences. Physiology rests upon physics and 
chemistry; genetics makes use of mathemat- 
ics; all special.lines of botany require to some 
degree a knowledge of morphology. 
Under these conditions will not the intro- 
ductory course come more and more strongly 
to stand out as one that attempts nothing 
more than the grounding of fundamental prin- 
ciples and a selection of information with 
rather definite reference to its general and 
practical interests, or its broad philosophical 
bearing? - Brapiey Moore Davis 
WASHINGTON, 
November, 1918 
A POSSIBLE NEW FUNGICIDE FOR WHEAT AND 
BARLEY SMUT 
THE eradiction of stinking smut from 
wheat grown on the Pacific coast appears to be 
contingent upon the prevention of reinfection 
of treated seed by spores of smut in the soil 
or upon its surface. Even though the wheat 
farmer may have a smut free field, his soil is 
subject to infection by smut showers from his 
neighbors who thresh and blow into the air 
myriads of smut spores which are carried for 
miles by the winds. 
Formaldehyde treatment for stinking smut 
in seed wheat, which has been found so effec- 
tive and cheap in the states east of the Rocky 
Mountains where soil infection apparently does 
not occur, is ineffective against smut infected 
soils everywhere. This is due to the imme- 
diate evaporation of formaldehyde gas when 
the solution dries from the seed. 
