July U, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



51 



ius with a force that will bring its useful- 

 ness home to thousands, where before it 

 would have been known to but a few of the 

 elect ? While willing to admit that America, 

 for very good reasons, has not as yet been 

 able to take front rank in the way of origi- 

 nal discoveries, no one will deny the fact that 

 our country has quickly turned to, practi- 

 cal account discoveries of all kinds where 

 there was promise of practical results. So 

 that while in physiology, laboratory inves- 

 tigations have been pushed with vigor 

 abroad, our efforts have been, in the past, 

 mainly in the direction of broad field work, 

 which has added materially to the wealth 

 and power of the country. This is particu- 

 larly the case with the work on legumes and 

 the application of laboratory discoveries to 

 the problems connected with nitrogen sup- 

 ply and the rotation of crops. The extend- 

 ed work of Laws and Gilbert, and other 

 experimenters, has done much to empha- 

 size the value of the broad application of 

 laboratory research in this field. It some- 

 times happens in work of this kind that its 

 application is of such a special nature as 

 to preclude a proper appreciation of its 

 value in a general way. Such, for exam- 

 ple, is the work of Loew, who three years 

 ago undertook a very special problem hav- 

 ing to do with the handling of tobacco, 

 and which, in two years, was practically 

 finished, but so changed the aspect of the 

 work that it opened great possibilities in 

 building up an important industry and 

 adding wealth to the country as well. The 

 keen competition in tobacco growing, and 

 the fact that the finest grades were, in large 

 part, imported, made it very desirable and 

 important that all available information in 

 regard to the crop be secured. The chief 

 problem upon which light was needed had 

 to do with the fermentation of the leaf. 

 Prior to Loew 's work, it was generally held 

 that fermentation was, in large part, due to 

 bacteria, and that the difference in the 



aromas of tobacco might, to a certain de- 

 gree, be controlled through the action of 

 these organisms. Loew's work showed that 

 the fei-mentation of tobacco was due to en- 

 zyms. The enzyms causing the fermenta- 

 tion were isolated and methods for control- 

 ling them were pointed out. As a result of 

 this work improved methods of handling 

 the crop have been developed and new in- 

 dustries established. Such, for example, is 

 the Sumatra tobacco industry developed in 

 Connecticut, which owes its incentive to the 

 advanced work of Loew, and which bids 

 fair to add a great deal to the material 

 wealth of the country. 



Plant breeding is another branch of ap- 

 plied work closely related to physiology, 

 which has made rapid advances during the 

 past few years. It is true that plant breed- 

 ing leads off into horticultural and other 

 fields, but the advances that have been 

 made in this field in recent years have had 

 their inception largely in botanical studies. 

 The work, as a whole, has had for its ob- 

 ject the advancement of industrial pur- 

 suits, and has aided materially in adding to 

 the wealth and progress of the country. 

 It is true that in some cases applied work 

 in this line has been pushed in advance of 

 scientific research, but this has led to no 

 serious results, for notwithstanding a lack 

 of knowledge as to the full scientific signifi- 

 cance of the various operations performed, 

 the results have in most cases shown far- 

 reaching intuitive knowledge on the part of 

 those who have actually been engaged upon 

 the various problems. What has been ac- 

 complished by Bailey, Webber, Waugh, 

 Burbank, Hayes and othei"s has shown 

 great possibilities, and the improvement 

 made in many crops will, no doubt, in time, 

 prove of more value than even the present 

 seems to indicate. 



In no branch of botanical science have 

 the advances in applied work been more 

 pronounced than in pathology. Twenty 



