March 3, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



331 



The possibility of large practical results 

 from botanical investigations along agri- 

 cultural lines seems to be particularly 

 promising at the present time, probably 

 because so many botanists are directing 

 their attention in this direction. What 

 the future has in store for the farmer of 

 this countiy. because of the researches now 

 being carried on in plant pathology, plant 

 physiology, soil bacteriology and other 

 branches of botany, can only be conjec- 

 tured, but that much of real value will be 

 forthcoming there can be little doubt. In 

 no other field are the opportunities so 

 great; in no other way are the practical 

 returns of botanical investigation so sure. 



When the farmer is made to realize that 

 the soil upon which he is so dependent is 

 not dead and inert, but a living, changing 

 thing, the laboratory in which some of 

 nature's most wonderful miracles are per- 

 formed, he will be more ready to accept 

 help and advice from a man who may not 

 know how to plant and reap, but who 

 understands the nature of the growing and 

 the fruiting and the factors controlling 

 them, as only one who has given himself 

 to searching for botanical truths can know 

 them. And when such knowledge applied 

 by the farmer means all the difference be- 

 tween success and failure, an increase of 

 one hundred to one thousand per cent, in 

 his crops, the growing of new plants in 

 new ways, the successful combating of 

 ruinous diseases, the conservation of the 

 real worth in the manure pile instead of 

 allowing all its fertilizing poAver to be 

 wasted into the air — these and many other 

 practical results will at no distant day es- 

 tablish botanical research as one of the 

 most necessary and beneficial aids to the 

 most important industry in the world. 



Before I conclude, it may be well, per- 

 haps, to inquire into the nature of the re- 

 search now being carried on in botany 

 under the name of scientific investigation. 



Is it always scientific, or, indeed, even 

 botanical? Does it in every case result, 

 not necessarily in creating value where 

 waste and worthlessness existed, but in that 

 real addition to knowledge and the clarifica- 

 tion of the subject which is supposed to be 

 its function? I am sure you will agi'ce 

 with me that nothing so tends to prevent 

 the advance of any science as for it to be 

 loaded down with a vast weight of undi- 

 gested facts, which are published and re- 

 published by man after man in the fond 

 belief that they are 'contributions to knowl- 

 edge.' Such a practise can not always be 

 prevented, but it behooves botanists to 

 realize their resjionsibility and to do all 

 in their power to elevate their science and 

 the character of the work being done under 

 their direction. It does not necessarily 

 follow that because a man has just taken 

 his bachelor's degree that he is qualified 

 to carry on the investigation of some real 

 problem in botany, even though his in- 

 structor does give him the subject. Far be 

 it from me to advocate in any sense of the 

 word a commercial test for botanical in- 

 vestigation. There are many problems in 

 botany which all of us want answered, but 

 which probably will never be capable of an 

 industrial application, and no one wants 

 them to be. Furthermore, it is net given 

 to us to determine the outcome of any par- 

 ticular line of work, and those fields which 

 have seemed furthest removed from utility 

 have often yielded results the most bene- 

 ficial. I do wish, however, that the test 

 always applied to scientific work which has 

 a practical application might also be used, 

 at times, at least, in judging all botanical 

 investigation. There can be little doubt 

 'I bout the wide difference in the scrutiny 

 given a paper prepared on some technical 

 subject, upon which the writer is no doubt 

 able to speak with authority, but which will 

 at most provoke a controversy between some 

 half dozen others in the world who are 



