THE VALUE OF A STUDY OF BOTANY. 119 
their existence. We study literature because we find in it 
a ministry of joy which gladdens, invigorates, and rests us. 
But the trees and the flowers constitute a ministry of joy, 
and to those who really know them they are companions 
ministering to the higher and purer delights of life, and 
voicing, like some old Gregorian chant, the praise of God. 
They praise him and magnify him forever — even as it 
has been written : " O all ye green things upon the earth, 
bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him forever." 
They speak to those who knew them a language full of 
meaning. It was Wordsworth, I believe, who said: "To 
me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that 
often lie too deep for tears." 
Huxley has advocated the study of natural history 
because it leads us to seek the beauties of nature instead 
of trusting to chance to force them on our attention. 
" To a person," he says, " uninstructed in natural history, 
his country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery 
filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which 
have their faces turned to the wall. Teach him something 
of natural history, and you place in his hands a catalogue 
of those which are worth turning round." 
The study of botany deserves encouragement too for 
what it has already accomplished and is capable of here- 
after accomplishing for agriculture. Within the memory 
of men here present the theory of agriculture has been 
revolutionized by virtue of the better knowledge of the 
subject which the botanists together with the chemista 
have ascertained and diffused. I shall not undertake to set 
forth at length what has been accomplished in this respect. 
But I wish to say that the new fields of botanical 
research which are now being developed give promise of 
results of the greatest economic importance. I refer to 
the study of that class of plant diseases which are due to 
parasitic bacteria, and to which attention was first called 
about 1880, by a distinguished botanist of the State from 
which I come. These investigations have disclosed weU 
