The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-11-05
EXPERIMENTAL STATIONS
 NOT PROPERLY SUPPORTED.
So Declares E. Meade Wilcox of Ala btma Polytechnic Institute, in Passing Criticism on Depart
 -k oR 1ri n,,lfura
ment of Agrtcultu

ment of Agriculture.
 New Orleans Times-Democrat.
 An Interesting figure among the dele gates to the recent Nut Growers Asso- cia ton Convention was E. Meade WILCOX Ph, D., professor of botany in the Ala
 bama Polytechnic Institute. at Auburn and botanist of the Alabama State EX- perinnent Station. Dr. Wilcox Is young man who has already shaped for hlmselL some important views upon the hortlcui- ture. the agriculture and the purely SCI entifc botanical work or the day. lie IS a graduate of the Ohio State University, having attended that institution from his home in western New York, but his ad- vanced work, leading to his doctors de-
 gree was done at Harvard. He also stud jed in Germany.
 Most interesting of what Dr. Wilcox has to say are his remarks about the United States Department of Agriculture. He Is not an unqualified admirer of the department's way of getting at things.
 He criticises their indifference to much or the State Experiment Stations work. He believes that they are not altogether
 friendly to the stations. Hc says that
 the department. without cooperation with
 the State stations already engaged in cer- tain investigations, has several times trenched upon the stations work. The department is bent on boosting the work of It's own appointes says Dr. WILCOX.
 They must win laurels for themselves. and for the department, and little consid- eration is shown to outsiders.
 Dr. Wilcox thinks the department moreover, frequently makes premature claims for progress 1t believes It has se- cured He thus classes the claims made for the experiments looking towards the
 ,N4 nnf that resist the boil weevil attacks. pr. Will cox himself has no faith in such ideas. Tho idea that resistant varieties of cot ton may be produced seems to him most unlikely.
 The present tendencies in botanical sci- ence present n question entertaining'y discussed by pr. Wilcox. Dr. Wilcox chief work is pathological botany. the study of the disease of plants. As pro lessor of bot my. however. he is also a student of the classification and dlstrl-
 button of the American fora He shares with other botanical students the re
 narkahle extremes to which the desCrib-
 CTS of new species are going There Is no reason in the present tendency, says pr.
 Wilcox The faintest tendency towards
 variation from what has been considered the type form of a certain plant Is seHed upon by the morbid systematist, and de- signatcd as q new form. Dr. Wilcox in dorsed what A noted ornitholoClst re- gently said In regard to this subdivision practice in describing slight varieties or birds taking for the basis or an attempt to distinguish new form some charnc- ter that $ merely an extreme develop ment of a character already recognized. Tn criticising this practice, the ornithol- cgist in question said that what natur- alists wanted to recognize were the spe- Cies of today not the species of ten thousand years hence. It was impossible | in a system of nomenclature to recognize every possible tendency towards variation 1 from what is accepted as the type. pr. Wilcox pointed out that in the new Southern States botany by Dr. Small of Columbia University. there described
 nearly POO species of the single genus Crataegus of which the common name is haw. The Southern species of this
 <'.nus were formerly considered to he GOV [ cred by about thirty descriptions. The great extent to which the subdivision has been carried in :his case is due to the work of ono of the botanists at Biltmore, N. C. This is an extreme case. but there
 are other cases sufficient to give uneasi- ness to the field hotanist of today says
 Dr. Wilcox. Naming new species Is mater of egotsm. in many cases. Dr. Wll- cox thinks. The custom of giving the de- scriher's names after the scientihc deslg- nation of a plant is partly responsible Tor the multiplication of subspec!es. thinks Dr Wilcox. It would be better If instead of the name of the describer there ap- peare1 after the spccific designation the
 name of the work in which the plant was | first described. Things have come to so
 bad a pass in this respect. says pr. Wi-
 cox, that recently a systematic. or stu dent of species. declared that there were many differences between certain forms or
 the same species that could be seen by an experienced eye. but that could not be described in terms Any difference
 that could not be described in the Eng fish language shorld not necessitate the