THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
strange questions about objects one would suppose them 
to have known since childhood. 
Almost every year, in January and February, we have 
a few buds of horse-chestnut, hickory and Norway maple 
for study and pleasure. The delight may be combined with 
study, or it may be apart from it entirely; but the study 
is sure to bring- delight, while the joy may lead to further 
investigation. Often a person of so-called liberal culture 
will salute us with the remark, ''Why, how forward those 
buds are. A friend of mine saw trailing arbutus in bud the 
other day. It is going to be an early spring, is it not?" 
Now, as a matter of fact, the buds in question and 
those of elm and a number of other plants, have been in 
just about the same condition since last August or even 
earlier. Few people ever look at them. What's the use? 
They will take care of themselves just as well as if we knew 
all about them. True, as regards the buds, but it may be ovir 
soul's salvation would be safer for a glance. 
From a purely practical point of view — and it is the 
"practical" that is eternally dinned into a botanist's ears — 
one never knows how soon an observation made in the 
secret of the closet or laboratory may become of value in the 
market-place. IVly own father, studying diatoms and other 
microscopic organisms for the delight their beauty gave 
him, was one day called upon by the United States gov- 
ernment to investigate the mud from the x\tlantic floor to 
prove whether such a bed was able to bear the telegraph 
cable. Professor Huxley on the other side and Ehrenberg 
did the same. These quiet savants suddenly became impor- 
tant. So Louis Pasteur probably little foresaw to what his 
early researches would lead in the cure of disease or mit- 
igation of human suffering or in the saving of so important 
an industry as grape growing. 
