HEW PHYTOIiOGIST. 
Vol. i., No. i. 
January, 23RD, 1902. 
EDITORIAL. 
HEN the notion of starting a new botanical journal in this 
country was first mooted some months ago, we were 
plainly told by a certain distinguished botanist that it was not 
enough to shew there was room for a new periodical, an actual 
necessity for its existence must be established. But it may, we 
think, at least be contended that there is another point of view. 
Nature does not go about painfully to prove that the existence of 
a new organism is absolutely indispensable—she throws it upon 
the world and leaves it to take its chance. If there is room 
for the new-comer, if it is well adapted to fill its place in the 
scheme of things, it survives. If not, it inevitably goes under and 
disappears. And the same considerations apply in the main to 
the appearance of a new journal. The struggle for life will not 
spare it, and if it maintains its place it establishes its right to 
exist. It is true that under the conditions of civilization certain 
undesirable types of organism continue to live, protected by an 
artificial environment. A parallel may be found in the kindly but 
mistaken “loyalty” which prompts some people to support a 
magazine which they do not want, or which has outlived its claims 
to recognition. We do not seek such help at the outset of our 
adventure, nor do we expect to keep the support of our present 
subscribers if the new journal fails to provide them with anything 
they care to have. Meanwhile the experiment seems worth 
making. 
The main idea which led to the inception of the present 
journal is easily set down. It seemed that there was room for a 
medium of easy communication and discussion between British 
botanists on all subjects connected with their branch of science, 
methods of teaching and research as well as purely scientific 
