APPLICATIONS OF BOTANY 247 



mixtures of studies iii botany and p'hilosop'hy. Many of the 

 early botanists and some of tlie very recent ones were practi- 

 tioners of medicine. But in time botany passed out of the hands 

 of the medical profession and is now recognized as fundament- 

 ally associated with agriculture. Unfortunately, it has been 

 divided into branches bearing names so distinct that many 

 people fail to recognize them as divisions of botany. The most 

 important of these divisions of applied botany are agronomy, 

 horticulture, forestry, plant breeding, bacteriology, plant path- 

 ology and pharmaceutical botany. 



Agronomy is the study of field crops, more especially of 

 cereals and forage plants, and involves not only the study of the 

 plants but also the study of soils, fertilizers, culture and many 

 other factors. It must be closely correlated with plant breeding,* 

 soil bacteriology and plant pathology. It also involves a knowl- 

 edge of plant physiology, plant ecology and plant geography; no 

 great advancement can be made in the introduction and grow- 

 ing of new plants without a knowledge of the conditions under 

 which they are grown. 



Horticulture is subdivided into three branches as follows: 

 (a) Pomology, which deals with the growing of fruits. It is 

 a very important and highly developed industry, (b) Olericul- 

 ture, which deals with the growing of vegetable and truck crops, 

 is also an extremely important and highly developed industry, 

 (c) Floriculture, which deals with the growing of ornamentals, 

 is also an extremely important industry. It is especially highly 

 developed in the immediate vicinities of our large cities. It in- 

 volves the growing of both indoor and outdoor ornamentals and 

 landscape gardening, and the study of varieties, plant food and 

 culture. They are all closely associated with plant breeding, 



