jANtTAKY 31, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



175 



taught the doctrine of the fixity and special 

 creation of species, and regarded purely 

 morphological and taxonomic questions as 

 the chief aim of the science. His keen 

 perception and receptive mind neverthe- 

 less enabled him to see, while yet a stu- 

 dent in Germany, a very different future 

 for botanical science. This was first 

 brought to his attention on the occasion of 

 a visit in 1850, to the Royal Gardens at 

 Kew, England, then under the able direc- 

 tion of Sir "William J. Hooker. He there 

 observed for the first time the enormous 

 resources of plant life, and the extent to 

 which plants are capable of contributing 

 to man's welfare; he there saw in the Vic- 

 toria regia and in many other rare and 

 striking examples of exotic plants the great 

 possibilities they presented for an exten- 

 sion of man's intellectual and esthetic in- 

 terests ; and in the vast amount of material 

 gathered from all quarters of the globe he 

 recognized the great opportunities for an 

 extension of scientific knowledge along the 

 most attractive and useful lines. He be- 

 came profoundly impressed with the im- 

 portance and the far-reaching character of 

 the problems thus presented, and from that 

 time on his thoughts were largely occupied 

 with botanical questions. It was the ex- 

 perience gained at that time which had so 

 marked an influence upon the early plans 

 for the development of this college. This 

 was eventually expressed, among other 

 ways, in the formulation of plans for a 

 botanic garden, unfortunately never real- 

 ized; in the construction of the Durfee 

 Plant House, and in the building of a 

 botanical museum, both very modest but 

 exceedingly useful efforts to follow the sug- 

 gestions of the Kew Garden, from which 

 institution the first skilled gardener was 

 obtained. More than this, however, it per- 

 mitted the formulation of plans upon a 

 broad basis, and an intelligent and far- 

 reaching conception of the true relations 



in which scientific knowledge must always 

 stand toward scientific agricultural prac- 

 tise. 



It is certainly true that an institution 

 such as this must always be prepared to 

 educate a certain number of men in the 

 theory and practise of agriculture, but all 

 modern experience tends to show with in- 

 creasing force the subordination of such 

 training to that which gives a man a special 

 skill in some one or more of the sciences 

 which may be applied to that industry. 

 No more striking instance of the correct- 

 ness of this point of view could be ob- 

 tained than one which was brought to my 

 notice recently, as contained in an address 

 delivered to the West Indian students of 

 McGill University by Sir Daniel Morris, 

 commissioner of agriculture for the West 

 Indies. Sir Daniel has supervision of the 

 agricultural interests of the entire British 

 West Indies, including Honduras, Guiana 

 and other colonies within the continental 

 area. His experience in the agricultural 

 needs of that region has been both wide 

 and prolonged, and the services he has ren- 

 dered are such as to give his opinion special 

 weight. In directing the attention of his 

 hearers to the useful and lucrative careers 

 which are open to properly-qualified men, 

 and the great influence they may exert in 

 the pi'omotion of agriculture there, he 

 placed special emphasis upon the statement 

 that special knowledge of purely agricul- 

 tural problems, gained elsewhere, would be 

 useless. What is needed are men specially 

 trained in those sciences such as chemistry, 

 plant pathology, plant physiology and en- 

 tomology, which may be applied directly 

 to the solution of great problems relating 

 to conditions of soil, diseases of plants, the 

 general question of nutrition and the opera- 

 tion of destructive insects. Through such 

 channels it would be possible for an expert 

 to gain the confidence of the farmer and 



