March 21, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



271 



tical importance as illegitimate, to be turned 

 out into the cold to perish. These foundlings, 

 however, were not infrequently rescued by 

 some more enterprising member of a sister 

 science and occasionally grew into most flour- 

 ishing children of their foster parent. 



Again we are all familiar with the fact that 

 many of the most practical aspects of botany 

 have grown to be of so much importance that 

 they now assiune the place of independent 

 sciences, and are no longer recognized as 

 having any connection with their mother sci- 

 ence. In fact botany unadorned now stands 

 in the minds of most people — including many 

 scientists — as a synonym for the impracticable 

 and the useless. The minute it becomes of 

 value to man, either in peace or war, it must 

 be called bacteriology or forestry or phyto- 

 pathology. As a result of this wide-spread 

 opinion we have a much-advertised achieve- 

 ment of another research council committee 

 depending not only upon plants for the source 

 of the product but also upon the applica- 

 tion of botanical methods for the actual 

 process of manufacture, yet with no reference 

 whatsoever to botany. Another similar case 

 is the recent establishment of a concern at 

 present turning out more than seven tons a 

 day of a product used in munitions, derived 

 from corn. Although called chemical distilla- 

 tion, the process is one of fermentation, pro- 

 duced from pure cultures of an organism which 

 is manipulated according to the practises de- 

 vised in botanical laboratories. 



Examples might be multiplied indefinitely 

 of those who, working in other sciences, ask: 

 " Can you tell me of a plant containing a cer- 

 tain kind of substanee, where it grows, what is 

 its name, whether it can be obtained in large 

 quantities, and how to distinguish it from re- 

 lated plants? If so I can use the information 

 in the solution of a problem upon which I am 

 engaged." And after the questions are an- 

 swered there appears an article based almost 

 entirely upon the results of botanical investi- 

 gations, for which the science chiefly concerned 

 receives no credit whatsoever. This is no 

 imaginary case. All botanists have had at least 

 a few such experiences and were there time I 



might quote from letters received during the 

 past year which would emphasize even more 

 strongly this aspect of giving no credit where 

 it is due. 



It is probably true that botanists themselves 

 are largely to blame for such a condition of 

 afiFairs. Whether it be modesty or lack of 

 interest or a failure to realize the importance 

 of asserting themselves and emphasizing va- 

 rious aspects of science, the fact is self evi- 

 dent that altogether too much time in the 

 past has been spent in criticism of others 

 rather than attempting to correct their own 

 faults. Perhaps we need a criterion by which 

 botanical work may be definitely distinguished. 

 We are obviously at a disadvantage in being 

 confined to but one kingdom, while the chem- 

 ist and physicist know no such limitations. 

 But the plant kingdom certainly affords a 

 reasonably wide field of endeavor, and pre- 

 sumably botanists are those concerned with 

 plants — even plant physiologists. We calmly 

 sit by and see aspects of our subject, which, 

 according to present-day standards, make a 

 thing worth while, appropriated for the benefit 

 of other sciences because it is too much trouble 

 or it is nobody's particular business to attend 

 to such things. 



Even the very name botany is avoided imder 

 the slightest pretext. New titles for branches 

 of this science, usually with the prefix " chem- 

 ical," are coined so fast that one can hardly 

 keep up with them, and if to-morrow the cause 

 of influenza or any human disease were proven 

 to be due to a species of Lahoulhenia or Thele- 

 phora. Dr. Thaxter or Dr. Burt, although at 

 once taking first rank as applied botanists, 

 possibly, much against their will, would over 

 night lose all association with botanical sci- 

 ence and become at the very least a Laboul- 

 beniaceaeologist or a Thelephoraceseologist. It 

 may be too late to correct much of this sort 

 of thing which already exists or to hope for a 

 bureau in the Department of Agriculture that 

 bears the name of botany, but why allow it 

 to continue without a protest and taking steps 

 to prevent similar efforts to smother our sci- 

 ence in a multitude of misleading and detri- 

 mental names? If a man spends nine tenths 



