THE SCIENCE OF BOTANY AND THE 

 ART OF INTENSIVE CULTIVATION 



By F. W. KEEBLE, F.R.S. 



Director of the Royal Horticultural Society's 

 Gardens, Wisley. 



The task that is laid upon the contributors 

 to these pages is no light one. Two years ago most 

 of us were engrossed in our professional duty of 

 endeavouring to enlarge the boundaries of natural 

 knowledge. Absorbed in this exacting labour our 

 daily life was led somewhat apart from that of 

 the great body of the nation. Each of us worked 

 on a narrow front, engaged upon a special task, 

 somewhat oblivious of the others' labours and 

 inclined to be indifferent to the nation's immediate 

 needs and problems. At heart we were no doubt 

 not ungrateful for the leisure and opportunity with 

 which the State provided us for the pursuit of 

 our several studies; but generally prone in our 

 excursions into the larger world to affect a tone 

 of superiority, to lecture our fellow men on their 

 neglect of science and to deplore the small part 



