AMERICAN 
JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
Vol. I January, 1914 No. 1 
INTRODUCTORY 
With this issue the American Journal of Botany starts upon its 
career with the support of the Botanical Society of America and the 
Brooklyn Botanic Garden. That there is field for a new botanical 
journal, no one acquainted with the progress of botany in America 
can question. Within the past twenty-five years the avenues for 
publication in this field have enormously increased, especially in 
Government territory. But great as it is, this increase of means 
has not kept pace with production. The result has been that our 
established botanical journals in America are over-stocked with 
manuscripts waiting their turn, our colleges and universities are 
making outlets for their own production, and foreign journals have 
their courtesy and capacity taxed by the offers of American contribu- 
tors. All three of the conditions just named are undesirable: an 
author does not like to wait a year or more for the appearance of his 
paper, the multiplication of small periodicals by colleges and uni- 
versities is a vexation to research, and it is neither just to ourselves 
nor kind to our colleagues of other lands to ask them to give large 
printing space to our contributions. 
Thus it is certain that our new journal does not enter the field 
with keen competition. Matter for its printing is offered with out- 
stretched hands. This lack of competition might be thought of as 
an unfortunate circumstance; but rather it can be made the oppor- 
tunity for a high order of excellence to be adopted and maintained 
for the papers accepted for publication. The modern scientific 
journal has the duty not only of serving its contributors with space 
for publication, but also of serving its readers, as far as possible, with 
reading matter well put together and narrative concisely expressed. 
