OdTOBER tg, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



493 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office; Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles : — Botany in the Agricultural Collea;es 493 



A Reclaimed Swamp. (With figures.) 494 



Gifts of Palms and Tree-ferns to the World's Fair 494 



The Supposed Correlations of Quality in Fruits .... /V^^.rjt)r L. H. Bailey. 495 



Nrw or Little-known Plants: — New Orchids R,A.Rolfe. 497 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter W, Watson. 497 



Cultural Department : — Grafting Grapes E. G. Lode man. 498 



The Herbaceous Garden M. Barker. 500 



Roses IV. H. TapUn. 500 



Lilies in Autumn C.L.Allen. 501 



Anthracnose of the Pear Professor Byron D. Halsted. 501 



Correspondence : — The Future of the Fair-grounds X. 501 



In the Redwood Forest Charles Howard Skinn. 502 



Recent Pubucations 503 



Notes 504 



Illustrations : — Part of a Reclaimed Swamp, near Clifton, New Jersey, Fig. 84. 498 

 The Sacred Lotus in a Reclaimed Swamp, Fig. 85 499 



Botany in the Agricultural Colleges. ■ 



SOME time ago Professor Bailey, in a suggestive contri- 

 . bution to Science, made a plea for a broader botany. 

 We quoted largely from the article at the time of its publi- 

 cation and will only repeat that the fact complained of 

 was the restriction of botanical science to the study of 

 wild plants. This was natural in earlier days, when there 

 was little attempt to apply science to cultivation, but since 

 the theory of evolution has come to be accepted, a new 

 purpose has been given to the study of all natural objects, 

 and cultivated plants especially have gained a fascinating 

 interest because they furnish such conspicuous examples of 

 variation andheredit)^. The great massof material which the 

 multiplied species of cultivated plants afford can be made 

 to illustrate the accumulative effect of modified environment 

 and selection under the influence of human care as wild 

 plants cannot possibly do. They can show within a brief 

 period as much progression in definite lines as their wild 

 prototypes could show in ages. This makes the garden 

 one of the best places in which evolution can be studied. 

 But the point which it is proposed here to insist upon is, 

 that more and more it should be the endeavor of those 

 interested in agriculture and horticulture to bring into prac- 

 tical use the facts and laws vv^hich science discloses, and 

 make them actually helpful in the cultivation of plants. 

 The study of botany as pure science, the investigation of 

 the laws of plant physiology and variation under different 

 conditions, can have abundant application in improving 

 the quality and changing the character of economic plants 

 as well as in developing new and better methods of cultiva- 

 tion. This means that not only should increased attention 

 be given to the study of fungi and bacteria and other 

 special branches of the science, but that more attention 

 should be given to investigations and experiments to show 

 how all the general truths of the science can be applied 



to the improvement of agricultural and horticultural 

 practice. 



There is encouragement in the fact that the attention 

 paid to botanical science in this country has largely in- 

 creased in recent years. In an address delivered by Dr. 

 Beal at the laying of the corner-stone of the new laboratory 

 in the Agricultural College of Michigan he stated that in 

 1859 when he took his first degree at the University of 

 Michigan there was but one institution of learning in the 

 United States where a man was employed and paid for 

 devoting his entire time to the science of botany. That man 

 was Dr. Asa Gray, Professor of Botany at Harvard Univer- 

 sity, and at that time only eight weeks of daily work were 

 required of undergraduate students, and they had the oppor- 

 tunity -of electing about three weeks more. A very few 

 resident graduates, from one to three at a time, pursued 

 the science further. In a few other universities and col- 

 leges, botany filled a small niche in the general course of 

 study, the same man usually teaching botany, zoology and 

 geology in the course, and often, too, giving instructions in 

 other branches of learning. 



The increased interest and attention which the study of 

 botany has attracted and which is seen in the numerous 

 state and national gatherings of men of science where a 

 growing number of subjects in this field are discussed in a 

 broad and practical way by able men and women, is largely 

 due to the work in tlie agricultural colleges and in the 

 national Department of Agriculture. The work of practical 

 botanists can be seen in numerous journals and transac- 

 tions of'these societies, in many books and bulletins. The 

 place which the science of botany ought to fill in a well- 

 conducted institution for the advance of agriculture is com- 

 ing to be understood and appreciated, and Dr. Beal is right 

 in saying that no agricultural college can rank among the 

 best, where a professor of botany is required to teach any 

 other subjects, and a simple enumeration of a few of the 

 essentials of a botanical department according to his view 

 will show how many-sided and comprehensive its 'equip- 

 ment should be. It should have enthusiastic workers 

 in the field, good collectors, persons well skilled in 

 preparing plants for the herbarium. In agricultural col- 

 leges particular attention should be given to grasses arid 

 forage-plants, trees, shrubs and weeds. The herbarium 

 should include specimens of cultivated plants, both those 

 that are grown in orchards and vegetable-gardens as well 

 as those that are grown for ornament. The laboratory 

 should be supplied with so many compound microscopes 

 that only one person should have access to the same in- 

 strument during any term ; it should have microtomes, 

 reagents in abundance, with all needed apparatus for ex- 

 periments in plant physiology and for photography. It 

 should have duplicated volumes of needed reference-books 

 all the time in the class-room, besides a generous library. 

 It will not be complete without a museum of plant- 

 products and numerous greenhouses for giving different 

 varieties of temperature, light and moisture. Beyond ques- 

 tion, it should have a botanic garden and arboretum, where 

 growing plants could be studied, each in the soil and ex- 

 posure best adapted to it. Of course, it should have a lib- 

 eral, uniformly increasing and permanent endowment, not 

 only because a properly equipped and conducted botanic 

 garden in itself involves an immense outlay of money, but 

 because the botanic department of a progressive university, 

 if it is under efficient management, will develop in all 

 directions just in proportion to the means at its disposal. 



This is a broad and far-reaching scheme, and one which 

 we can hardly hope to see realized in the immediate future, 

 but it is, after all, the most hopeful direction in which we 

 can look for genuine improvement in the arts of agriculture 

 and horticulture. No surer foundation for substantial im- 

 provement in these arts can be laid than a broader and 

 deeper knowledge of the sciences on vi'hich they rest ; and 

 certainly the science of plant-life is chief among these. 

 We can hardly expect that the General Government, 

 which has been so liberal with these colleges, will 



