July 13, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



49 



different directions, and of the progress of 

 the early part of the century Sachs has 

 given a suflBcient epitome. I propose, 

 therefore, that we shall consider the in- 

 ventory and balance sheet as in hand, and 

 that, like the thoughtful business man who 

 has closed his books for the year after 

 noting what he has on hand and what 

 the balance sheet shows, we shall take a 

 general view of the situation, in the hope 

 that some hint of economy or conservatism 

 or changed method may suggest itself as we 

 do so, by which the work of the new century 

 may be furthered. 



I have felt some interest in looking over 

 the present trend of botanical thought, as 

 evidenced in a few recent journals and in the 

 advance programs of this Association and 

 the affiliated societies devoted to subjects in 

 which botany figures directly or indirectly. 

 Neglecting strictly economic botany, I ob- 

 serve that taxonomy and descriptive botany 

 lead (42 per cent, in the particular examina- 

 tion made), followed at some distance by 

 morphology and organography (25 per 

 cent.) and physiology and ecology (20 per 

 cent.), while the much smaller remainder 

 (13 per cent.) consists in nearly equal parts 

 of vegetable pathology, phytogeography and 

 floras, and the evolution of plants either in 

 a state of nature or under the hand of man. 

 Though the percentages may vary consider- 

 ably, the general distribution indicated 

 above would probably apply in the main to 

 the prevalent activity of purely botanical 

 research. 



A hasty scrutiny of not far from a thou- 

 sand periodical publications received at the 

 library of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 

 and all containing at least occasional 

 articles on pure or applied botany, shows, as 

 might be expected, that the percentage of 

 journals restricted to one branch of botany 

 is much smaller than the average percent- 

 age contents of the current journals or pro- 

 grams. Even where botany is largely or 



exclusively represented, the contents of 

 journals are usually very heterogeneous. 

 Notes or longer papers on local floras or on 

 the characters of one or a few species 

 largely preponderate, and there are only a 

 few journals which concern themselves en- 

 tirely or chiefly with any other single com- 

 ponent of botanical knowledge. Among 

 these, vegetable pathology, and economic 

 botany in one or other of its subdivisions, 

 assume a comparable position with mor- 

 phology and physiology, though, for the 

 reasons stated, all are relatively lowered 

 with reference to taxonomy, as compared 

 with current papers included in the jour- 

 nals. Phytogeography and evolutionary 

 matters appear to be more suitable for books 

 than the other main subjects excepting 

 floras, and they do not appear to have led 

 as yet to the establishment of journals 

 specifically devoted to them. 



The preponderance of taxonomic work as 

 indicated by publications calls for a little 

 consideration. Human interest in plants, 

 as in nature generally, appears to have 

 begun in most cases by the observation of 

 useful and injurious or mysterious things ; 

 but before the information of the individual 

 could become public knowledge it was 

 necessary to mark differences between 

 things and to name or otherwise designate 

 them intelligibly. It is therefore natural 

 that taxonomy and nomenclature, in one 

 form or other, and however they may have 

 been designated, should have played an 

 equal part with economic observation in 

 even the earlier studies of plants ; and it is 

 not at all surprising that the first real sci- 

 ence of botany should have been developed 

 along these lines, nor that the awakening 

 interest in other lines of botanical study 

 should have failed as yet to attain an equal 

 position as regards the number of botanists 

 concerned with them. 



It is also a very natural thing that the 

 abstract idea of the distinguishable groups 



