310 .PROCEEDINGS OF THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



follows that judgments differ regarding what is most funda- 

 mental and important in botanical science. In a rapidly advanc- 

 ing and shifting science, one can, in passing judgment, do little 

 more than indicate the trend of his own limited vision. In what 

 follows, the subdivisions of the science will be considered mainly 

 in historical order, without intimation of relative importance. 



Before considering the phases of botanical science, let us 

 note some striking evidences of general advance. From 1875 to 

 1895, niany American students were trained partly in Europe; 

 but in recent years, there has been a marked decrease in the pro- 

 portion of American students who have gone abroad for bo- 

 tanical training. 



Twenty-five years ago. the United States was appropriating 

 only $25,000 per annum for botany and allied work in the De- 

 partment of Agriculture at Washington. By 1905, the appro- 

 priations for the bureaus of plant industry and forestry had 

 passed $1,000,000, and in 191 5 they were in round numbers, 

 $9,000,000. The number of workers employed for such work 

 by the United States government has increased in the last twenty- 

 five years from about a dozen to 7,000. 



Botanical advance is strikingly reflected in the growth and 

 the multiplication of botanical journals. Scarcely an American 

 botanical periodical is a half century old, and nearly all have 

 come into existence within the last twenty-five years. A quarter 

 of a century ago, one could maintain a fair view of American 

 botany by reading two current publications ; but botanical 

 journals and phases of botanical activity have multiplied until 

 no botanist can familiarize himself with any large proportion of 

 all that appears. 



TAXONOMY 



Prior to 1880, American botany was almost exclusively tax- 

 onomy ; and other phases, except the beginnings of morphology, 

 belong to our quarter-century. In recent years, taxonomy has 

 been displaced in part, by other phases of botanical science ; 

 and it no longer occupies the prominent place that it did when 

 the country was new, the flora poorly known, and other lines of 

 botanical study undeveloped. However, the number of tax- 



