=The importance of botany.=—­Advancing but a single step we find ourselves in the realm of botany, which is a field so vast and so fascinating that men have devoted an entire lifetime to its wonders, and then realized that they had but made a beginning in the way of exploring its possibilities.  In our own time Mr. Burbank has made his name known throughout the world by his work in one phase of this subject, and a score of other Burbanks might be working with equal success in other branches of the subject and still not trench upon one another’s domain.  Venturesome, indeed, would be the prophet who would attempt to predict the developments in the field of botany in the next century in the way of providing food, shelter, and clothing for the race.  The possibilities stagger the imagination and the prophet stands bewildered as he faces this ever-widening field.  But botany, vast as it is seen to be, is only one of the branching sciences connected with agriculture.

=Physics and chemistry.=—­Another advance brings us into the wide and fertile field of physics and chemistry, for in these subjects we find the means of interpreting much in agriculture that without their aid would elude our grasp.  We have only to resolve a grain of corn into its component elements to realize the potency and scope of chemistry.  Then if we inquire into the sources of these elements as they have come from the soil to form this grain of corn, the indispensability of a knowledge of chemistry will become more apparent.  In our explanations we shall soon come upon capillary attraction, and the person is dull, indeed, who does not stand in awe before the mystery of this subject.  If we broaden our inquiry so as to compass the evolution of an ear of corn, we shall realize that we have entered upon an inquiry of vast and fascinating import.  The intricate and delicate processes of growth, combining, as they do, the influences of sunshine and moisture and the conversion into food products of elements whose origin goes back to primeval times,—­these processes are altogether worthy of the combined enthusiasms of scientist and poet.

=Physiology.=—­But no mention has been made, as yet, of the science of physiology, which, alone, requires volumes.  We have but to ask how wheat is converted into brain power to come upon a realization of the magnitude of the study of this science.  We have only to relax the leash of fancy to see that there are no limits to the excursions that may be made in this field.  If we allow fancy to roam, taking the a posteriori course, we might begin with “Paradise Lost” and reach its sources in garden and field, in orchard, and in pasture where graze flocks and herds.  But in any such fanciful meandering we should be well within the limits of physiology, and should be trying to interpret the adaptation of means to end, or, to use the language of the present, we should be making a quest to determine how the products of field, orchard, and pasture may be utilized that they may function in poetry, in oratory, in discoveries, and in inventions.  In short, we should be trying to explain to ourselves how agriculture functions in life.