234 The American Naturalist. [March, 
tively economic work; and the two lines of investigation could 
very well be carried on together. To illustrate this point let me 
again quote from a recent report by Professor Forbes, in which 
the relations of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History 
to the Illinois Station are discussed. He says: 
“The recent organization, at the university, of the State Agri- 
cultural Experiment Station has raised the question of the rela- 
‘tions of the work thus instituted to that of the Natural History 
Laboratory and the State Entomologist’s Office, with the effect to 
bring about an adjustment of the two at their points of contact 
in crytogamic botany and economic entomology. The purpose 
of the State Laboratory being essentially scientific and educa- 
tional, its results are only incidentally economic; while the pur- 
poses of the Experiment Station are essentially economic, and its 
scientific work must naturally be regulated with close reference to 
practical results. In cryptogamic botany, for example, the Lab- 
oratory is engaged in a general survey of the state, intended to 
give us the species, the classification, and the life-history of all 
our flowerless plants, whether economically important or not, and 
the relations of these to agriculture will come in as a purely sec- 
ondary matter ; while in Experiment Station work, on the other 
hand, little attention will probably be paid to any species except 
those having economic relations. Ad practical botanists are 
agreed, however, that the economic species and those of no economic 
importance are so intimately related in classification, habit, and life- 
history, that a full and exhaustive knowledge of the whole subject ts 
very helpful, and often indispensable, for the solution of merely eco- 
nomical problems. The more, in short, the State Laboratory 1s 
able to do in technical and biological botany, the easier and more 
fruitful will be the economic work of the botanical department 
of the Station. The former should, in fact, supply a broad and 
strong foundation on which the latter may build elaborately. 
“ As much of the work in the two directions requires substan- 
tially the same facilities, methods, skill, and knowledge, the two 
may be easily combined in a way to economize labor and expense 
and to increase results, the only requisite being a common scheme 
of subdivision and adjustment of proper subjects of research, and 
