PRESIDENT'S ADDRK8S. 
589 
scientific workers and persons interested in science be so organized 
that they may exert permanent influence on public opinion in order 
more effectually to carry out the third object of this association 
originally laid down by its founders, viz., To obtain a more 
general attention to the objects of science and the removal of any 
disadvantages of a public kind which impede its progress, and 
that the Council be asked to take steps to provide such organiza- 
tion.” There are two other resolutions passed at a meeting of the 
Corresponding Societies’ Committee in November, 1903, which it 
is my duty to bring before you. 
1st Resolution. — “That the Members of the Corresponding 
Societies be requested to give as much help as they can to teachers 
in those Elementary and Secondary Schools which are taking up 
the subject of Nature Study.” 
2nd Resolution. — “That the Corresponding Societies be 
recommended to enter upon the six-inch ordnance maps any 
unrecorded natural features and archaeological remains.” 
1 have chosen for my address the subject of — 
PLANT PHYSIOLOGY. 
It is only since the latter part of the last century that the study of the 
physiology of plants has made any great advances, and even now an 
enormous amount of research work remains to be carried out in 
order to verify or discard by further experiments the many theories 
that have been propounded, in relation to the physiological actions of 
plant life. The whole subject lias become so vast and extended 
that almost any one section would require the lifetime of an 
observer, and therefore for my present purpose I shall only refer 
generally to some of the more important heads. 
If we regard a herbaceous plant or a tree from the point of view 
of its being simply a structure composed of trunk, branches, leaves 
and roots, we get but a very finite idea of it. \Ye may admire a 
fine tree with its perfect arrangement of branches and leaves ; we 
may be enraptured at the gradual unfolding of a fern leaf ; or 
