JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



proved so surprising that one dare not put a limit to the possibilities 

 which may be behind the experiments of intelligent men working 

 with definite purpose. 



Valuable experimental and practical work has been done in this 

 direction in this country, but it- has been generally confined to 

 familiar edible plants, vegetables, and fruits, and to the improvement 

 of flowers and foliage in ornamental plants. There are many other 

 directions in which experiment and research has given and can give 

 further important industrial results. The chief method of empha- 

 sizing a desirable quality in a plant is to select parents which most 

 nearly approach the conditions aimed at, and from the issue of this 

 fertilization to select and cross again and again those individuals 

 which show improvement in the required direction. 



When the principle is granted that it is possible to accentuate 

 special qualities in plants with considerable certainty, there need be 

 no reasonable limit to the ambitions to which imagination may 

 aspire in their improvement when controlled by knowledge and 

 patience. This applies not only to food plants, but to other plants 

 whose chemical properties make them valuable for specific industrial 

 purposes. It is important to realize that research operations of 

 this nature are necessarily slow and unspectacular, even if the eventual 

 results may appear miraculous. 



It has been pointed out by Sir E. Ray Lankester that, in spite 

 of the great accumulation of knowledge concerning plants cultivated 

 by man, complications and contradictions are continually arising 

 both in the study of established plants and in the growth of new 

 varieties. Finality is never assured, and the work of the botanist 

 can scarcely ever be said to be completed in any one case. From 

 time to time new plants are found which make a back number of 

 apparently staple industries. Chemists have learned to make from 

 the refuse of coal and wood many compounds which were formerly 

 at greater expense and with less certainty obtained from plants. 

 Consumers get new ideas, preferences, and fancies. Improved 

 transport opens new sources of supply. Many circumstances are 

 liable to unsettle established methods of manufacture or business 

 based upon plant production, and there is constant need for the 

 protective anticipation of economic botanists in every country. 



The immense material waste caused by four and a half years of war 

 will have to be made good in a large measure by the chemical activity 

 of plants. This must necessarily be a slow business, and everywhere 

 is a cry for greater productivity. It is conceivable that a few happy 

 discoveries by botanists might have important consequences in 

 reducing the losses of the War. So much of the raw material required 

 for our industrial purposes is grown out of the countiy, that the 

 extent of the waste is not very evident to us, the most noticeable 

 indication being the destruction of woodland. Some misleading 

 deductions might be drawn from the new activity in food production 

 by small cultivators and allotment-holders. But useful though this 



