229 
A Museum of Economic Botany . 
An instance of the economic value of systematic characters is 
afforded by the recent work of Baker and Smith, 1 who have demon¬ 
strated that there is a definite relationship between the venation of 
the leaves of many species of Eucalyptus and the chemical consti¬ 
tuents of their essential oils. 
The study of anatomical characters has solved questions as to 
the origin of several plant products, affords a means of detecting 
adulteration, and, for instance, in the case of Para rubber, has 
located the place of occurrence of the product in the plant and 
has led to improved methods of collection. 
The economic applications of plant-physiology are so numerous 
that it is not necessary to refer to them in any detail. Scientific 
agriculture is practically applied vegetable physiology. The curing 
of tobacco, the alcoholic fermentation of sugar, etc., are instances 
of the economic uses of enzymes and yeasts, and in these and 
in similar industrial processes, improvements are dependent on 
advances in botanical knowledge. 
Great results have been obtained in the past in plant breeding, 
and in the selection and raising of disease-resistant races, for 
instance of wheat and cotton. Progress in these fields is dependent 
on scientific research, possessing when it is carried out apparently 
little practical value. Thus the discovery of the factors which 
determine why one species, or certain individuals of one species, 
are susceptible to the attacks of a particular fungus, whilst another 
species or other individuals are resistant, would be of the greatest 
economic importance, although much of the work leading up to this 
result would be apparently devoid of any commercial value. 
Chemical investigation is steadily being more and more resorted 
to as a reliable means of estimating the economic value of many 
drugs, tanning materials, rubbers etc., and it is common knowledge 
that the success or otherwise of many botanical industries, for 
example the manufacture of sugar, has been, in the main, depen¬ 
dent on the application of exact chemical knowledge of the 
processes involved. 
Geological and climatic conditions, the geographical distribution 
of some harmful or beneficial animal, racial characteristics, rates of 
wages, to enumerate only a few items, are all important factors in 
the solution of many questions in economic botany. 
1 Baker and Smith. On the relation between the leaf venation 
and the presence of chemical constituents of the oils of 
the Eucalypts. (Proc. Roj\ Soc., New South Wales, xxxv., 
pp. 116—123). 
