whom we can not get rid of, because they really have no other amusement. But the botanist has a slight twinge of conscience when he thinks that the kinds of amateurs of which I have spoken are tolerated mainly in the hope, sweet but prolonged, that they may contribute funds to some botanical endowment. But, alas! the gold-mills of the amateurs grind slowly, and they grind exceeding small. The large sums seldom come from amateurs, but generally from hard-headed business men who do not pretend to be botanists, but who, with a liberality which does infinite credit to us as a nation, give their money for the public good. It is superfluous for botanists to express their admiration of this class of liberal men. We more than admire them—we live on them!
But, fortunately for botany in this country, we have many amateurs of another class. We have many men and women, rich in intelligence, but usually not rich in money. They are scattered all over the country. They are to be found on the coast of New England, in the smaller towns of the West and South, and in the still more recently settled coast of the Pacific. The time which they can spare from their necessary and not unfrequently arduous occupations is given with enthusiasm to botanical pursuits. The spare money which they can command is spent on botanical books which they read, Their collections do not lie idle on the shelves. It is such amateurs as these of which we may justly be proud, and it is by their labors that a large, if not the largest, share of our botanical investigations must be made in the near future, and it is of the greatest importance that their energy and enthusiasm should not be misdirected. In the remoter districts, as I have said, the absorbing work, for some time to come, must be the collecting of specimens and the accumulation of field-notes. In the older parts of the country, including even the Mississippi Valley, it seems to me that the rising generation would make the best use of their opportunities by working out some of the many important questions of histology, and in studying the life-histories of different plants, more especially cryptogams. But the main point is, not to attempt to do too much. The thorough investigation of a small point has a definite value, and does credit to the investigator, but elaborate monographs and far-reaching physiological investigations are only of value when well done, and it is mild praise to say of a man that he has done his work "pretty well, considering," for the really wise man would have considered what he could do well as distinguished from what he could not do well.
But you will probably think that this paper is not like a ball of twine, which, however much it may be twisted and snarled, really has an end. There is much more which I should like to say on the subject; as it is, I have tried to avoid particular specifications as to the subjects of research, which would be interesting only to botanists, but to state broadly some of the difficulties in the way of botanical re-
