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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLT. No. 1050 



theoretical botanists. What matters it, 

 say we? Alas, it matters much, unless we 

 happen individually to be endowed. For 

 botanical positions, like other things in 

 life, are controlled by the law of supply 

 and demand. In more than one institu- 

 tion that I know the tenure of position of 

 the botanist depends upon his success in 

 attracting students. The student, needing 

 bread and butter, will not be attracted to 

 ■lines in which he can not earn it, and, as 

 Dilr. Dooley says, ' ' There ye are. ' ' In sev- 

 eral state universities the clash has already 

 come, and in every case of which I am cog- 

 nizant, the more practical botany of the 

 agricultural department has won as against 

 the more theoretical botany of the aca- 

 demic department. Even in our private 

 institutions we commonly have practical 

 trustees who sooner or later may see the 

 trend of the time and act accordingly. 



Notwithstanding the sorry picture just 

 painted, I suspect that all of us believe at 

 heart that the most fundamental aim of 

 botany is the improvement of the human 

 race. All of us desire as our supremest 

 wish, that we may do something in our 

 brief life to make man 's lot better than be- 

 fore we came. Therefoi-e, it remains only 

 to make concrete our inmost ideals, in 

 order to save the day for botany, as it was 

 not saved for Greek and Latin. 



A good many years ago I published a 

 paper on the vegetation of the sand dunes 

 of Lake Michigan, depicting the principles 

 of plant succession, as there so strikingly 

 illustrated. Shortly after, with an expres- 

 sion on my face betokening, ''There now, 

 isn't that something like?" I gave a copy 

 to a man of the world, who said merely 

 "Well, what of it?" Aghast, I said noth- 

 ing and only now, fifteen years afterwards, 

 is the answer forthcoming. It is as fol- 

 lows : 

 . Two years ago I was surprised to receive 



a message from the United States Depart- 

 ment of Justice, asking for my seiwices as 

 an ecological expert in some government 

 cases in Arkansas. With many misgiv- 

 ings, and with the feeling that ecology, as 

 I represent it, was now specifically on trial, 

 I took up the work assigned me. To my 

 unalloyed gratification I discovered that 

 matters which perplexed the Department 

 of Justice were simple enough when ex- 

 amined by an ecologist rather than by an 

 attorney. In 1847 the original survey was 

 made by the United States of the bottom 

 lands along the Mississippi River in east- 

 ern Arkansas, and the country was opened 

 for settlement. A great deal of the area 

 was surveyed as permanent lake, and is so 

 shown even on the most recent detailed 

 maps. At the present time the.se so-called 

 lakes are occupied by heavy timber of great 

 value. Furthermore, this "lake" land is 

 very fertile, and much in demand for rais- 

 ing corn and cotton. However, as it is 

 termed lake in the original survey, it can 

 not be homesteaded and farmed. A few 

 years ago certain lumber interests, having 

 used up the high-grade timber on the sur- 

 veyed lands, looked with envy on the splen- 

 did timber growing in these so-called lakes. 

 Consequently they conceived the idea of 

 purchasing riparian rights from the own- 

 ers of the adjoining surveyed land, and 

 they proceeded to cut the timber. Shortly 

 afterwards the United States government 

 instituted suit against these lumber inter- 

 ests, its contention being that the original 

 survey was fraudulent, that lakes did not 

 exist in 1847, and that riparian rights 

 therefore did not inhere. In the mean- 

 time, pending settlement, provisional en- 

 tries were made by "squatters." While 

 test suits were made on only a few of these 

 so-called lakes, there exist many tracts of 

 similar nature, involving in the aggregate 



