66  Next  Steps  in  Botanical  Science.      4A~YJour-  p^rm- 
1  \    February, 1913 
yet  no  movement  of  a  united  army  of  science ;  it  has  been  rathei 
a  sort  of  guerrilla  warfare  against  the  common  enemy.  We  lack 
organization,  and  like  unorganized  soldiers  we  make  little  headway 
in  spite  of  individual  learning  and  efficiency.  Botanical  science 
which  should  have  guided  and  directed  these  laudable  applications 
has  not  kept  pace  with  them,  and  we  have  the  spectacle  of  these 
economic  botanists,  physiologists,  pathologists,  plant  breeders  and 
others  working  apart  from  the  botanists  proper,  and  sometimes 
even  disclaiming  any  allegiance  to  the  parent  science.  Nothing 
but  confusion  and  disaster  can  result  from  such  a  condition. 
Lack  af  Co-operation. — Contrary  to  what  is  sometimes  affirmed, 
botanists  are  still  studying  the  flora  of  the  country.  In  some 
quarters  there  has  been  expressed  the  fear  that  field  botany  has 
disappeared  from  the  schools  and  colleges ;  but  this  is  far  from  true. 
While  it  no  longer  claims  the  larger  part  of  the  student's  attention, 
it  is  still  an  essential  part  of  the  training  of  every  botanist,  and 
it  is  probably  true  that  in  some  cases  there  is  even  more  field  work 
required  to-day  of  young  botanists  than  its  importance  demands. 
Certainly  in  one  kind  of  field  work  I  should  like  to  see  some  of  the 
energy  and  ability  now  given  to  the  discovery  of  means  for  splitting 
old  species  turned  towards  the  solution  of  problems  pertaining  to 
growth,  and  development,  and  reproduction.  But  the  careful  field 
study  of  what  plants  grow  here  and  there,  and  why  they  do  so,  is 
greatly  to  be  commended.  The  sociology  of  plants,  or  as  we  call 
it,  ecology,  has  given  in  the  last  few  years  a  new  reason,  as  well 
as  a  new  direction  to  field  botany. 
The  systematic  botany  of  to-day  continues  to  concern  itself 
more  with  the  distinction  of  species  than  with  their  origin,  and 
this  has  brought  to  this  department  of  the  science  an  increased 
narrowness  which  has  greatly  injured  its  usefulness.  On  the  other 
hand  plant  breeding,  which  should  be  the  experimental  phase  of 
systematic  botany,  has  had  no  connection  with  it.  And  strangely, 
systematic  botany,  which  should  welcome  plant  breeding  as  an  ally 
in  its  quest  as  to  the  meaning  and  origin  of  species,  has  been 
scarcely  at  all  interested.  It  has  been  left  to  the  florists,  the  horti- 
culturists and  the  agronomists  to  patronize  the  new  phase  of  botany, 
and  this  they  have  done,  in  spite  of  the  new  and  quite  unnecessarily 
formidable  terminology  so  rapidly  developed  by  the  breeders.  So 
what  might  have  proved  to  be  one  of  the  most  helpful  aids  to  the 
solution  of  the  greatest  of  biological  problems — how  living  things 
