ARo™rv,?9ai3m'}     Next  StePs  in  Botanical  Science.  75 
science.  The  fact  that  these  researches  in  regard  to  plants  so  often 
have  an  economic  purpose  does  not  lessen  the  value  of  the  results 
to  the  botanist  of  broad  training  and  sympathies.  Here  again  we 
must  remember  that  as  botanists  we  should  not  undervalue  those 
contributions  to  knowledge  in  which  we  happen  not  to  have  an 
immediate  interest.  My  scriptural  quotation  of  a  few  minutes  ago 
might  well  be  repeated  here :  "  the  eye  can  not  say  to  the  hand 
'  I  have  no  need  of  thee/  or  again  the  head  to  the  feet  '  I  have 
no  need  of  you.'  "  When  they  receive  the  hearty  co-operation  of 
the  botanists  of  the  country  the  agricultural  experiment  stations 
will  develop  into  centres  of  investigation  of  the  greatest  importance 
to  science. 
Already  we  have  stations  for  the  study  of  plants  under  particular 
environments,  as  our  seaside  stations,  our  mountain  stations  and  a 
single  desert  station.  I  take  it  that  these  are  suggestive  of  what 
are  to  come  in  the  future.  Instead  of  trying  to  make  seaside  con- 
ditions away  from  the  sea,  we  go  to  the  sea  and  there  set  up  our 
laboratories.  So  when  we  want  to  know  how  plants  behave  in  the 
desert  we  go  to  the  desert.  And  this  is  no  doubt  to  be  the  direction 
of  botanical  investigation.  We  are  going  to  study  plants  under 
their  natural  environment,  and  to  the  seaside  laboratories  we  shall 
add  (as  indeed  we  have  already  to  a  limited  extent)  lakeside 
laboratories,  riverside  laboratories,  swamp  laboratories,  forest 
laboratories,  field  laboratories.  Already  the  tropical  laboratories, 
in  Java,  Ceylon  and  Jamaica  have  justified  themselves,  and  no 
doubt  to  these  we  shall  soon  add  arctic  and  tundra  laboratories. 
All  this  signifies  that  more  and  more  we  are  going  to  see  what  the 
plant  is  doing  in  its  natural  environment,  and  then  we  can  under- 
take intelligently  to  watch  it  under  a  changed  environment.  So 
the  future  is  to  witness  a  great  increase  in  the  number  of  these 
laboratories,  and  how  far  it  will  go  can  only  be  conjectured.  It 
now  appears  probable  that  eventually  every  botanical  department 
will  have  one  or  more  of  these  environmental  laboratories  in  which 
work  may  be  clone  by  advanced  students.  They  will  take  the 
students  out  of  doors,  as  the  old-time  systematic  botany  took  them 
out.  but  these  students'  will  go  equipped  with  thermometers,  psy- 
chrometers,  anemometers  and  balances,  instead  of  vascula  and  plant 
presses.  Thus  we  shall  again  go  afield,  but  on  what  a  different 
quest !  The  old-time  botanist  in  the  field  was  mainly  concerned 
with  the  question  of  the  specific  identity  of  each  plant  he  found ; 
