June 10, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



899 



none was seen before. It, therefore, seems 

 inevitable that a new race of systematic 

 botanists will have to be developed to de- 

 vote themselves to cultivated plants— for it 

 needs no seer to predict that many genera- 

 tions of botanists will be needed to define 

 and describe all the minute forms in nature 

 which it is now proposed to call species. 

 The fatuity of such work, however, will de- 

 feat itself. As a matter of fact, the naming 

 of a species is an interpretation of facts 

 just as our theories of variation are inter- 

 pretations of the same or very similar facts. 

 For both purposes we need far more of the 

 facts that can only be gathered in rigid 

 pedigreed breeding experiments. Botanists 

 have too long neglected the most vital fea- 

 tures of botany to the theoretical evolu- 

 tionist and to the commercial breeders. 

 We have developed to a high degree nearly 

 every phase of the subject that does not 

 touch industry— and have neglected those 

 of most practical import. Our hope of 

 aiding the art of agriculture is in develop- 

 ing its underlying sciences. Too many of 

 us have reversed this idea and think to 

 help the sciences of agriculture by de- 

 voting more attention to its art. But gar- 

 deners do things with plants that are the 

 despair of the physiologist, and there al- 

 ways will be vastly better farmers than the 

 scientists. 



The matter of botanical instruction in 

 all schools is to a large extent a matter of 

 feishion — and the fashion is usually set by 

 the larger universities, where no attempt is 

 made to give botany an industrial trend. 

 There has thus been developed a splendid 

 lot of texts on morphology, embryology, 

 systematic botany, physiology, etc., but 

 none of this material has been presented in 

 its agricultural bearing, and consequently 

 the field of botany in agriculture has not 

 Taeen clear. At the present time it has 

 meither direction nor aggressiveness. What 



we really need to work on is the science of 

 the breeder's art and the science of the 

 gardener's art. At present, the art is far 

 in advance of the science. In fields where 

 the agricultural art was not highly devel- 

 oped—notably pathology and bacteriology 

 —the botanist has accomplished great 

 things. Greater things remain in the bo- 

 tanical fields he has thus far so largely 

 neglected. If we pursue agriculture or 

 any phase of it without devoting our sci- 

 ence to it, we can at most become expert 

 farmers. By devoting our science to agri- 

 culture and having faith in its potency, no 

 man can foretell the outcome. 



I have endeavored to indicate what I 

 regard as the most promising lines for 

 botanical work to advance agricultural 

 progress. The routes that the investiga- 

 tors have followed and are following along 

 these lines furnish the natural and best 

 possible chart upon which to map botanical 

 courses in agricultural schools. These 

 courses should be fashioned as far as pos- 

 sible to promote interest in the botanical 

 problems of agriculture, rather than those 

 with little or no agricultural contact. To 

 me it seems as if the great field that is at 

 present open to us is that of determining 

 as fully as possible the potentialities of 

 our principal crop plants so that they may 

 be utilized to the utmost. 



In some ways we might compare our 

 present knowledge of plant species or their 

 subdivisions to the knowledge of organic 

 chemistry fifty years ago. At that time it 

 was believed that organic compounds could 

 be formed only by vital processes. In a 

 similar way there exists among biologists 

 the more or less unformulated idea that 

 species and subspecies are the result of 

 forces beyond our command; that we can 

 study their evolution but can not control 

 the processes. It seems to me that the 

 results obtained by the cultivator of plants 



