PREFACE 



THIS book is for boys and girls who study about plants. 

 It is a book about the fundamentals of plant life, and 

 about the relations between plants and man more than it 

 is a " textbook of botany." Yet it presents, as fully as 

 the author believes to be desirable in required courses, 

 those large facts about plants which form the present 

 basis of the science of botany. These facts also form, it 

 is believed, a minimum of knowledge about plants to which 

 every high school student is entitled. To present this mini- 

 mum adequately, rather than lengthily to cover a maximum, 

 has been the aim. 



Appreciation. The book seeks to give its reader a cer- 

 tain appreciation of plants and of the relationship of plant 

 life to his own life. The study of " botany " may or may 

 not yield such appreciation. Boys and girls by mere ac- 

 cumulation of " organized knowledge about plants " may 

 never come to that appreciation of plants as a part of life 

 which is believed to be very desirable, and one of the 

 proper ends of the study of plants in high schools. 



Delimitations. The book presents the large essentials 

 of plant life. It emphasizes their significance to man. 

 But it does not pile up specific illustrations and applica- 

 tions which may not illustrate or apply in what is common 

 to the lives of high school students in general. The effort 

 is to include what has proper place in the education of all 

 young people, and to exclude special information which 

 properly has required place only in the education of some 

 young people. Thus, as to agriculture, it is believed that 

 such general study of plants as is presented herewith should 

 precede the special study of that subject, but it is doubted 



