Excerpt from Ecology: Continuing the Plant World My purpose today is to draw your attention briefly to certain facts and tendencies in the field of ecology. All life is controlled by two great forces, heredity and environment, and ecology is the science dealing with the environment. It therefore covers practically the whole field of biology, and is related in one way or another to every science which touches life. There have 'been three stages in the development of the biological sci ences: first, a period of general work, when Darwin, Agassiz and others amassed and gave their knowledge of such natural phenomena as could be studied with the limited methods at hand; next, men Specialized in different branches, and gradually built up the biological sciences which we know today; and now has begun the third or synthetic stage. Since the biological field has been reconnoitered and divided into its logical parts, it becomes possible to see the interrelations and to bring these related parts more closely together. Many sciences have been developed to the point where, although the field has not yet been fully covered, contact and cooperation with related sciences are essential to full development. Ecology represents the third phase. You have but to glance at the list of ecological problems drawn up by the Committee on Cooperation of the Ecological Society and appearing in Science for January 16, 1920. And this list is far from complete. You will see problems requiring work by zoologists, botanists, foresters, geographers, meteorologists, soil chemists, soil physicists, bacteriologists, and geologists, to mention only some of the leading lines. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.