Febeuaet 5, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



213 



the exception of plant pathology it is exceed- 

 ingly difficult to find graduates in hotany 

 whose training has given them either a taste or 

 a qualification for the innumerable problems 

 surrounding crop production. Almost none 

 take the U. S. Civil Service examinations, the 

 result being that the positions are mostly filled 

 by graduates in agronomy with but meager 

 botanical training. 



The result of this condition of affairs is 

 detrimental to the advance both of botany and 

 of agronomy. The young botanist is neither 

 trained nor encouraged to look upon the prob- 

 lems of crop production as the legitimate and 

 greatest field for his future activities. Con- 

 versely, agronomy sniffers because far too few 

 botanists lend their aid to the study of plants 

 under cultivation. 



The charge has sometimes been made that 

 botanists purposely avoid grappling with the 

 enormously difficult physiological and ecolog- 

 ical problems that every agronomist and horti- 

 culturist encounters. I do not believe that 

 American botanists have ever consciously taken 

 this attitude, but they have been willing to 

 leave the work largely to chemists and others 

 of very limited botanical training. In short, 

 they have not asserted their rights to this 

 field of plant phenomena nor proven them by 

 actual accomplishment. 



Botany has progressed greatly in America in 

 the past twenty years, in spite of the fact that 

 it has woefully neglected its greatest applica- 

 tion; namely, crop production. 



It is diiEcult to disagree with Dr. Copeland's 

 proposition " that the best scientific founda- 

 tion for plant industry is a knowledge of plant 

 physiology," except to add that equally neces- 

 sary is a knowledge of the adaptations of each 

 plant, which is ecology. The fact remains, 

 however, that plant industry or crop produc- 

 tion far antedates botanical science, and most 

 of its progress has been purely empirical; that 

 even yet our knowledge of the physiology and 

 ecology of any one crop plant is woefully 

 incomplete. 



I would go still further than Dr. Copeland, 

 however, and assert that the whole field of 

 plant culture or crop production is one of plant 



ecology and plant physiology. Until this is 

 recognized by botanists progress in crop pro- 

 duction will continue to be largely the work of 

 non-botanists. C. V. Piper 



U. S. Department of Agriculture 



IN REGARD TO THE POISONING OF TREES BY 

 POTASSIC CYANIDE 



In Science of October 9, 1914, was pub- 

 lished a short letter telling of a successful at- 

 tempt at poisoning the cottony cushion scale 

 by inserting cyanide of potassium in a hole 

 bored in the trunk of the tree. I have since 

 received a number of letters asking for further 

 information regarding my " process," and tell- 

 ing me of numerous cases where trees have 

 been killed by poisoning the sap with some- 

 thing beside potassioi cyanide. I would ac- 

 cordingly like to take this opportunity of 

 stating that I am not experimenting in either 

 entomology or horticulture; that I have no 

 process, and that I gave in my letter to Sci- 

 ence a plain statement of the method and re- 

 sults of my experiment. I did this in the 

 hope that it might serve as a suggestion to 

 others who are working in the same field. 



I was told by several of my colleagues who 

 are working in biological subjects that any 

 poison fatal to insects would kill a tree before 

 I put the cyanide in the trees, and I have 

 read in a recent number of Science of the de- 

 structive effects of putting potassic cyanide 

 and something else under the bark of fruit 

 trees. I have accordingly chopped down the 

 peach tree referred to in my former letter and 

 have examined both the wood and the bark 

 around the hole in which the cyanide was in- 

 serted. In both the wood and the bark there 

 was a discoloration around the hole extending 

 less than one eighth of an inch. Outside of 

 this ring I could notice no change in either. 

 I am not positive that as great an effect would 

 not have been produced if the hole had been 

 left empty. One proof that the bark was not 

 seriously poisoned about the hole was seen in 

 the fact that it had begun to grow over the 

 opening. This is also true in the case of the 

 broom and the orange tree referred to in the 

 previous letter. The peach tree was cut down 



