157 



It is a consequence of specialisation, and it is reflected in our research* 

 But it must be counteracted if botany is in the future to be aught else 

 than an academic study, as it was of old an elegant accomplishment. 

 It has come about very much because of that want of recognition by 

 botanists, to which I have already referred, of the natural outlets of 

 their study — of their failure so far to see the lines through which the 

 subject touches the national life. Modern botany has not yet found in 

 this country its full application. It has not yet rendered the State 

 service as it ought, and as was done by the taxonomic teaching it sup- 

 planted. 



50. It is from this point of view that I wish to point out to you to- 

 day that through forestry — and although I have particularly dealt with 

 this branch of Rural Economy, what I say is equally true of horticul- 

 ture and agriculture — modern botanical study should find a sphere of 

 application by which it may contribute to our national well-being, and 

 which would have a directive influence upon its teaching, taking it out 

 of the groove in which it tends to run. What we botanists need to do 

 in this connection is to teach and to study our subject from a wider 

 platform than that of the mere detail of individual form, and to en- 

 courage our pupils to study plant-life not merely in water -cultures in 

 the laboratory, but in the broader aspects exhibited in the competitive 

 field of nature. 



51 If forestry is ever to thrive in Britain, botanists must lay the 

 foundation for it in this way. We cannot expect to make our pupils 

 foresters, nor can they get the practical instruction they require in 

 Britain. In this we must depend yet awhile on continental schools ; 

 the stream of continental migration, which needs no longer to flow in 

 morphological and physiological channels, must now turn in the direc- 

 tion of forest schools. But we can so mould their studies and give 

 bias to their work as will put them on the track of this practical sub- 

 ject. Jf we had only a few men so trained as competent foresters, 

 and capable of teaching forestry, there would be an efficient corps with 

 which to carry on the crusade against ignorance and indifference, the 

 overcoming of which will be the prelude to the organisation of forestry 

 schools and scientific sylviculture in Britain. The influence of the in- 

 dividual counts for much in a case like this. The advent of a capable 

 man started forestry teaching in Scotland, which years of talk had not 

 succeeded in doing. And so it will be elsewhere. 



I have endeavoured, thus briefly, to sketch the position, the needs, 

 and the prospects of forestry in Britain. Its vast importance as a 

 national question must sooner or later be recognised. It is a subject of 

 growing interest. Its elements are complex, and it touches large social 

 problems ; but the whole question ultimately resolves itself into one of 

 the application of science. To botanists we must look in the first 

 instance for the propagation of the scientific knowledge upon which 

 this large industry must rest. They must be the apostles of forestry. 

 And forestry in turn will re-act upon their treatment of botany. Botany 

 cannot thrive in a purely introspective atmosphere. It can only live 

 by keeping in touch with the national life, and the path by which it 

 may at the present time best do this is that offered by forestry. 



