288 
Economic  Botany. 
Am.  J  our.  Pnarm. 
June,  1894. 
the  relations  of  timbered  areas  to  rainfall,  to  drainage,  to  the  health 
of  the  population  and  to  the  permanence  of  the  configuration  of  the 
earth's  surface,  the  methods  of  preventing  the  encroachment  of  sand 
dunes  upon  fertile  areas,  and  the  introduction  and  acclimatization  of 
new  species  of  trees. 
In  many  of  the  older  countries  of  Europe  schools  of  forestry 
have  been  established  and  systematic  measures  are  employed  for 
the  care  and  preservation  of  the  forests.  In  Germany  and  France 
forestry  has  become  a  profession,  which  gives  employment  to  a  con- 
siderable number  of  intelligent  men.  In  this  country  we  have  per- 
mitted the  destruction  of  a  very  large  share  of  our  forest  wealth — 
a  wealth  greater  probably  than  that  of  any  other  nation  in  the  world 
— and  we  are  only  now  awaking  to  a  sense  of  the  loss  and  begin- 
ning to  take  measures  to  prevent  further  destruction. 
Although  the  means  thus  far  adopted  are  quite  inadequate,  they 
form  an  entering  wedge  to  further  action,  and  the  splendid  work 
that  has  been  done  by  Sargent  and  Fernald  has  so  awakened  in- 
telligent public  sentiment  that  we  may  hope  for  satisfactory  legisla- 
tion on  the  subject  in  the  near  future. 
Pharmaceutical  or  medical  botany,  the  branch  which  most  di- 
rectly concerns  us,  is  in  some  respects  behind  the  other  depart- 
ments in  its  development ;  in  others,  however,  it  is  fully  abreast  of 
them.  Although  general  botany  owes  more  to  this  branch  than 
to  any  other,  since  the  earlier  botanists  were  mostly  either  physi- 
cians or  pharmacists  and  since  the  earliest  botanical  gardens  were 
established  chiefly  for  the  cultivation  of  medicinal  plants,  medical 
botany  is  behind  the  age  in  the  cultivation  and  improvement  of  the 
plants  with  which  it  deals.  There  are  still  a  very  large  number  of 
important  medicinal  plants  that  are  either  not  cultivated  at  all,  or 
are  cultivated  to  such  a  limited  extent  that  we  are  still  dependent 
for  our  supplies  of  them  on  the  primitive  forests  and  prairies.  Our 
agricultural  colleges  and  experiment  stations  leave  the  medicinal 
plants  almost  wholly  out  of  account,  and  excepting  the  case  of  the 
Cinchonas  and  a  very  few  other  drugs,  experiments  with  them  are 
left  entirely  to  individual  enterprise. 
It  is  behind  the  agricultural  branches  also,  in  the  fact  that  inade- 
quate attention  has  been  given  to  the  study  of  the  structure  of  the 
plants  with  which  it  deals.  True,  there  are  signs  of  awakening  in 
this  direction  and  a  hope  for  better  things  in  the  near  future. 
