Miscellaneous. 



534 



[December, 1910| 



hybrids. Is this answer adequate ? The 

 enormous importance of the subject, it 

 would seem, should have incited the 

 most intensive study into the problem. 

 Few plants in their ordinary wild 

 forms will repay cultivation. It is only 

 through their improvement that a per- 

 manent agriculture became possible. 

 The very baffling nature of the problems 

 presented, instead of attracting students, 

 seems to have repelled them. Syste- 

 matic botanists have looked upon cultiv- 

 ated plant varieties as artificial products 

 — useful, no doubt, but utterly subver- 

 sive to notions of classification obtained 

 from plants in their natural habitats. 

 Therefore, they have been neglected 

 and no plants are so rare in museum 

 collections as our common cultivated 

 ones. Such a thing as a reasonably 

 complete herbarium of cultivated plant 

 varieties nowhere exists. The natural 

 result of this has been that the syste- 

 matic botany of cultivated plants is in 

 woeful confusion. As a rule, numerous 

 botanical species have been based cn 

 purely agricultural varieties, but in 

 some cases the opposite extreme is found 

 and perfectly distinct species are con- 

 fused as garden varieties. As a natural 

 consequence of this neglect by botanists, 

 the great mass of information we have 

 concerning any cultivated plant is large- 

 ly the work of men of little or no 

 botanical training. 



With the establishment of the numer- 

 ous agricultural experiment stations in 

 all parts of the world, the doors were 

 open wide to scientific men to work for 

 the advancement of agriculture. It is 

 instructive to review the general trend 

 of what took place in fields of agronomy 

 and horticulture, which, broadly speak- 

 ing, not only cover the 'whole subject of 

 crop plants, but soils as well. Generally 

 speaking, there are four potent and more 

 or less controlable factors which affect 

 the yield of crops. These are tillage, 

 fertilisers, rotations, and variety oj plant. 

 To these might be added the prevention 

 of loss by diseases or insects. Broadly 

 speaking, three types of scientific men 

 went into agronomic work, First, those 

 who were interested in the study of ferti- 

 lity. For the most part, these men were 

 and are chemists, and they have studied 

 their problem largely or wholly from a 

 chemical standpoint. Probably as a re- 

 sult of their chemical training the field 

 plot work of these investigators is by far 

 the most accurate agronomic field work 

 conductors. The theorectical side of 

 the subject of soil fertility has recently 

 been stimulated by vigorous attacks on 

 the long-accepted theory of available 

 plant food, an explanation so luminously 

 simple, that a few pages of.text sufficed 



to tell the whole story. It may devoutly 

 be hoped that a renewed activity in the 

 study of fertility may stimulate botau- 

 ical work on the nutrition side of the 

 problem, which is pretty nearly where 

 Sachs left it forty years ago. The second 

 class of scientific men who were attract- 

 ed to agronomic work were botanists. 

 In large measure, these men under- 

 took investigations dealing with plant 

 diseases, with the end in view of pre- 

 venting or curtailing the serious losses 

 resulting from such causes. The results of 

 their work furnish the best contributions 

 that botany has thus far conferred on 

 agriculture in this country. So far as 

 field crops are concerned, there are 

 decided limitations to the use of any 

 direct preventive methods of such as 

 spraying, As a natural result, investi- 

 gators of the diseases of such plants 

 were forced to ad pot one or two lines of 

 approach to the solution of the problems 

 involved. They could either seek for 

 immune or resistant varieties, or they 

 could make a comprehensive study of 

 the crop and the disease, and endeavour 

 by such indirect methods as rotation to 

 curtail the disease loss. In either case 

 the result was that the pristine patho- 

 logist often graduated into an agrono- 

 mist. The third class of men who went 

 into crop investigations were generally 

 termed agriculturists and horticulturists. 

 They constituted by far the most diverse 

 group. In a few cases they were simply 

 good farmers. In some cases they were 

 men of very broad training. For the 

 most part they were men with good 

 general equipment. To these men fell 

 the great bulk of the field work in- 

 volving principally investigations into 

 tillage, rotations and the testing of crop 

 varieties. It thus fell largely to this 

 third class to investigate the complex 

 problems of plant varieties. Even in 

 the few cases where experiment-station 

 agriculturists and horticulturists had 

 good botanical training, the diverse 

 problems facing them as well as paucity 

 of literature gave little opportunity for 

 far-reaching studies. Generally speak- 

 ing, one of two plans was pursued. In 

 the one case a series of varieties was 

 grown, and all but a few of the ap- 

 parently most promising were discarded 

 without further ado. In the other case 

 more or less full information was 

 published regarding each of the varieties 

 tested. Further investigations have 

 clearly revealed the very superficial 

 nature of most of these varietal studies. 

 In general, the collections consisted of 

 such varieties as could be gathered locally 

 and through seedsmen. In only a few 

 cases have specimens been preserved, so 

 that it is not possible now to verify or 



