Carbon Assimilatioil. 
Chapter Viil. 
Concluding Remarks . 
In the preceding pages we have attempted to give the outlines 
of one the most fundamental problems of plant physiology. The 
subject has been attacked from many different points of view and 
by many different methods, but in our opinion the main interest is 
not centred in the achievements of any individual investigator. 
What, in our opinion, is the most important aspect which presents 
itself in reviewing the facts obtained in recent investigations on 
carbon assimilation, is the prospect of the development of a new 
phase of science. This is the prospect that plant physiology is 
developing into an exact science, utilising the experiences of the 
fundamental sciences, physics and chemistry, but nevertheless a 
science, exact and independent, with its own working principles and 
methods, directing and stimulating the development of the applied 
sciences, agriculture and horticulture. No prophetic vision is 
needed to foretell that developments in agriculture and horticulture 
will follow development in plant physiology as great as those 
which were produced by physics and chemistry in engineering and 
other technical sciences. 
But such development can only take place if we learn from the 
past what are likely to be the limitations to successful development. 
The present state of the subject is the result of a number of 
independent investigations, the bearing of which on one another 
is rather accidental than designed, and in this lack of co-ordination 
is to be found a reason for the slow development of the subject 
hitherto. It is clear that the only way to attain a reasonable rate 
of progress is to institute a much closer and more intimate co¬ 
operation between scientific workers attacking the same problems 
from different points of view and by different methods. 
It is generally desirable in a review of this nature to conclude 
with a brief summary of the present position of the subject. In the 
case of carbon assimilation it seems to us that it is not so much the 
complete array of experimental facts obtained in the various 
researches which is of importance, but the general principles which 
become clear from a consideration of the whole subject. This is 
especially so as the subject is in a more or less mobile condition and 
development and ever-widening scope must follow along sound 
lines of work based on the principles of the subject. 
