76 



intelligent legislators, with biological training to pass the Week's 

 Bill, prohibiting the uninspected importation of nursery stock 

 into the United States, and thereby preventing the introduction 

 of plant diseases and obnoxious insects. New bills of biological 

 import will continue to be introduced at Washington and in the 

 state legislatures and there will be even more call for their in- 

 telligent consideration. Shall we turn back the hands of the 

 clock and parallel the situation in Pennsylvania in 1885, when 

 an unbiologic legislature spent in hawk bounties, directly and 

 indirectly, nearly $4,000,000 to save a paltry $1,875 worth of 

 poultry? 



Finally every one recognizes the growing emphasis that the 

 latest decade has given scientific achievement and progress. This 

 appreciation has been reflected in many ways. From a botanical 

 standpoint alone, professional activities have had to grow by 

 leaps and bounds, in order to keep pace with the demands of 

 the hour. Forestry has expanded into a ranking science, the 

 Bureau of Plant Industry has had to continuously increase its 

 staff, plant pathologists are called upon daily to save thousands 

 of dollars' worth of plants by prophylaxis or treatment, phar- 

 maceutical stations have been inaugurated, new plants are being 

 originated by scientific breeding, the Office of Foreign Seed and 

 Plant Introduction have brought to us valuable exotics and 

 have also raised the bars of quarantine against "undesirable" 

 foreign? plants, physiological chemists and bio-chemists are 

 everywhere at work on problems of soil fertility, fabric utiliza- 

 tion, by-products of plant origin, and the like. Yet I have 

 merely suggested some of the types of botanical activity, without 

 reference to even a complete resume. 



Some of us may not realize the extent to which the national 

 government and the states have fostered the development of the 

 agencies calculated to answer the agricultural demands of this 

 country. 



In one of the weekly news letters of last summer, Secretary 

 Houston, of the Department of Agriculture, pointed out that 

 there are 67 agricultural land grant colleges and experiment 

 stations in the United States, with an equipment of $195,000,000, 



