324 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 531. 



tlirougli the microscope or in the scientific 

 investigation of problems concerning phmts 

 could ever add to the world's wealth or be 

 classed as a productive pursuit, is often 

 quite beyond his comprehension. Because 

 botanists generally want the interest of 

 this class of men, would like their advice 

 occasionally, and under all circumstances 

 need their money, it is well perhaps that 

 now and then the utilitarian side of the 

 study of plants be emphasized, even though 

 it may shock a few of those who seem to 

 have associated themselves with the pro- 

 fession because they consider it so abso- 

 lutely incapable of being turned to account. 

 For it must be confessed that there still 

 persists a small class of botanists who look 

 upon anything practical connected with 

 the subject in much the same way that a 

 physician regards advertising. Just why 

 it should be a disgrace to undertake a prob- 

 lem which has a definite industrial applica- 

 tion is a little difficult to understand, but 

 there can be no question that some investi- 

 gatoi-s need no further inducement to drop 

 a piece of work than to have it intimated 

 that possibly it may result in some good. 

 It is to such members of the profession 

 that we owe, in part, at least, the com- 

 paratively low place botany takes to-day 

 as one of the applied sciences. 



It is also true that the indifference of 

 many of the earlier botanists to those prob- 

 lems, the solution of which promised to be 

 of actual service to mankind, has made it 

 neces.sary for other more enterprising scien- 

 tists to undertake work not strictly within 

 their province and has resulted in the 

 credit accruing to their particular field 

 rather than to botany, where it belonged. 

 It is a fact to be regretted, but which can 

 not be denied, that systematic botany so 

 occupied the attention of the early students 

 of plants that it was necessary for physi- 

 cians and chemists to make nearly all the in- 

 vestigations carried on in plant physiology 



and similar branches of the subject. This 

 naturally led many to consider that there 

 was nothing to botany except the analyzing 

 of flowers and recording their names, and 

 although this branch of the subject con- 

 tributed its share to the establishment of 

 applied botany, it Avas not sufficient of 

 itself to bring the profession to the high 

 position it deserves as an industrial science. 

 Even now the old order of things is so 

 strong upon some of us that there still ex- 

 ists a kind of feeling that any investigation 

 carried on with plants, other than their 

 systematic determination, is not pure bot- 

 any and should be relegated to the chemist 

 or physicist. While this is unfortunate, 

 it is not of so much consequence as at one 

 time. Such a condition, however, tends to 

 prevent a proper estimate of the value of 

 our science in comparison with others, and 

 makes it possible for such statements as the 

 following, recently made in a public ad- 

 dress, to go unchallenged : ' ' Practically all 

 forms of productive activity from the culti- 

 vation of the soil for the growth of cotton 

 to the finished tinted fabric, from the dig- 

 ging of the ore to the engines which dis- 

 tribute our commerce in its most varied 

 ramifications, rest upon chemical phe- 

 nomena." I think it is about time for the 

 botanist to begin to assert himself, at least 

 to demonstrate by his work and the results 

 obtained that botany has fully as large a 

 place in productive activity as any of the 

 other sciences, and that much more credit 

 is due to the student of plants than is ordi- 

 narily supposed. 



Another reason why botany has not taken 

 first rank among the applied sciences is 

 that when investigation has showTi the 

 study of certain plants to be of vast eco- 

 nomic value, the results have been of such 

 importance that that particular line of 

 work has soon assumed the proportions of 

 an independent science, and conseqiiently 

 the parent has often been lost sight of in 



