Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
August,  1920.  j 
Economic  Botany. 
587 
little,  but  only  a  little,  way.  The  complex  physical  and  physico- 
chemical  conditions  and  the  relation  of  the  plant  roots  to  the  sub- 
stratum, and  the  changes  that  may  be  induced  in  the  herbage  itself, 
are  very  little  understood;  indeed,  it  would  be  almost  true  to  say 
that  the  real  problems  have  as  yet  scarcely  been  formulated.  Hall 
and  Russell  in  this  country  have  emphasized  the  importance  of  the 
physical  texture  of  the  land.  Russell  and  his  collaborators  at 
Rothamsted  have  done  first-rate  pioneer  work  in  investigating  the 
importance  of  the  inter-relations  of  protozoa  and  bacteria  in  con- 
nection with  soil  fertility,  and  during  the  last  three  or  four  decades 
we  have  come  to  recognize  that  the  problems  of  fertility  are  not 
likely  to  be  elucidated  by  the  older  test-tube  chemistry.  They 
demand  for  their  analysis  chemists  with  a  biological  training  and 
outlook,  as  well  as  biologists  with  a  corresponding  equipment  in 
chemistry  and  physics.  At  present  the  two  branches  of  science  are 
often  undesirably  divorced  although,  largely  owing  to  pestilent 
systems  of  examinations,  a  lack  of  biological  training  among  chem- 
ists is  far  more  common  than  is  a  corresponding  ignorance  of  "physi- 
cal" science  with  biologists,  at  any  rate  those  on  the  physiological 
side.  It  is  not,  of  course,  suggested  that  every  student  should  at- 
tempt to  specialize  in  both  of  these  great  branches  of  science,  but 
it  is  certainly  a  bar  to  progress  that  a  student  of  the  one  should  con- 
tinue to  be  entirely  ignorant  of  the  more  fundamental  principles 
of  the  other.  Those  who  are  cognisant  of  the  facts  will  be  able  of 
their  own  knowledge  to  supply  examples  enough  during  the  late 
war — examples  that  would  have  been  humorous,  had  the  conse- 
quences not  been  fraught  with  too  much  gravity  at  the  time. 
One  of  the  happier  developments  arising  out  of  the  war  consists 
in  the  greatly  increased  recognition  in  this  country  of  the  value  of 
science  to  industrial  enterprise,  and  this  is  becoming  as  prominent 
in  the  biological  as  in  the  chemical  and  engineering  worlds.  Botany 
in  its  various  branches  is  in  a  position  to  render  very  important 
services  at  the  present  time,  and  the  supply  of  properly  trained  young 
men  is  as  yet  quite  inadequate  to  take  advantage  of  the  new  situa^ 
tion  that  has  arisen.  The  exploitation  of  oil,  rubber  and  other 
tropical  products,  the  fermentation  industries — indeed,  all  connected 
with  the  utilization  of  plants  and  plant  products,  afford  large  and 
profitable  scope  for  scientifically  directed  industrialism.  It  is  the 
business  of  the  botanist  not  merely  to  find  the  raw  material,  but  to 
improve  it  by  careful  breeding,  to  defend  it  from  the  attacks  of 
