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BOTANICAL STUDY AND HISTORY.
(Being a Presidential Address delivered to the Club at the Annual
Meeting on 19th March, 1932.)
By Sir DAVID PRAIN, C.M.G., C.I.E., F.R.S.
LAST year we considered a case in which the methods of the
historian appeared to assist botanical study. Let us
consider to-day cases where botanical methods may assist
historical investigation.
Botanical methods may aid history in two ways ; either
by indicating the influence a particular cultivated plant has
exercised on human conduct and affairs, or by revealing the effect
of man's activities and needs on the appearance and nature of a
particular cultivated crop. A successful effort to demonstrate
the influence of a particular plant on human conduct and affairs
is made in the work entitled "The Woad Plant and its Dye,"
published in 1930 by the Oxford University Press, soon after the
lamented death of its author, Dr. J. B. Hurry of Reading. The
choice of this particular treatise you may perhaps pardon : one
interesting fact it records was derived from the Essex Natura-
list. It has the further advantage of enabling us to learn the
scope and purpose of the work from the author himself.
The preface informs us that "apart from its reputation as
" the source of a dye, Woad is of extraordinary interest" from
various other points of view, to which the author gives attention
" in the hope that the survey may contribute to our knowledge
" of the social and industrial life of the Middle Ages, more
" especially in those countries where the plant was cultivated
" on an extensive, scale. Numerous illustrations will be met
" with of peculiar doctrines of political economy, of the narrow
" outlook of mediaeval commerce, and of the severity of punish-
" ment in the olden times. Of special interest is the bitter
" struggle for supremacy between the respective champions of
" the home-grown Woad and of the exotic Indigo, a struggle
" from which much may be learned by readers interested in the
" economics of the Middle Ages."
The introduction explains that "the subject takes us back to
" early times when the plant yielded a dye which was found
" attractive as well as useful in the eyes of our ancestors, one
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