324 PROCEEDINGS OF THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



plant pathologists and have been fairly well developed. In recent 

 years, more attention is being given to prevention of disease, in 

 which inheritance and immunity play a large part. The develop- 

 ment, through breeding, of resistant varieties, at the same time 

 desirable in other ways, is the main objective of recent plant 

 pathology. With development in this direction, and with all 

 possible amelioration of conditions of environment, it is hoped 

 that, in the future, remedial measures will need be resorted to 

 much less frequently than at present. 



The future plant pathologist must still know thoroughly 

 both mycology and remedial measures, but he must also under- 

 stand normal functioning and nutrition, water relations, tem- 

 perature relations, soil relations, oxygen relations, and other 

 phases of botany, physics, and chemistry. Thus equipped, plant 

 pathologists should be able, in the near future, to see to it that 

 plant diseases are much less common and destructive. 



CONCLUSION 



Though expansion and differentiation of botany have gone 

 on with surprising rapidity in recent years, we are merely at the 

 threshold of advance. The progress of the near future will make 

 the botany of today appear as crude as we regard that of a 

 quarter of a century ago. Coincident with expansion, the feeling 

 that the various sections of botanical science must not be too 

 sharply segregated, or the science as a whole become so thorough- 

 ly standardized as to impede progress will be strengthened. With 

 further progress, the close relationship of pure botanical science 

 to human needs and the enlargement of human character will 

 be recognized more fully. Leaving aside the most important 

 problem of all, viz., the broadening of human life by a general 

 study of organisms about us, the demand for the pure and fun- 

 damental aspects of the science must keep pace with the great 

 progress in applied phases. Especially is this true since the 

 theoretical and the practical form one great whole, all of which 

 ■one must know in its broad outlines if he seeks the highest use- 

 fulness in any field of botanical activity. 



The progress in botany which may be recorded when this 



