PREFACE 
This book treats the subject of botany from the same point 
of view that was adopted in the authors’ “ Practical Botany,” 
but more briefly; that is, it endeavors to deal with the 
subject with constant reference to common educational, es- 
thetic, and practical interests in plant life. It also emphasizes 
the dynamic side of botany. The plant is not used primarily 
as a subject for dissection, nor for making a preserved speci- 
men, but as an organism with a living to make—an organism 
that is forced to maintain its existence under conditions that 
are sometimes favorable and sometimes unfavorable to it. 
Constant effort has been made to render the style of the 
book simple and direct. 
The object here sought is to present in a short course that 
kind of botanical knowledge which will especially interest the 
average secondary-school pupil, and which will be of most serv- 
ice to him as a means of education. Along with this training a 
good deal of other knowledge is presented, which should remain 
as a valued acquisition throughout the student’s after life — 
knowledge of forest, field, wayside, farm, orchard, garden, and 
the industries. Since it has been shown that our disciplinary 
education may be useful in after life, mainly as the materials 
studied have elements in common with those later encountered, 
it becomes imperative that the elementary sciences should uti- 
lize in their content those things with which people are to come 
in contact. So much of the materials of botany is encountered 
by people in general throughout their lives that, according to 
recently accepted educational theories, this subject should have 
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