40
The Presidential Address.
suffer from our nearness to the metropolis, though our fox-
gloves and primroses will offer greater difficulties to the
exterminators. The Barberry is likely to be eradicated by
the farmer fearful of Wheat-rust, and the Deadly Nightshade
to disappear slowly from the collecting by druggists and the
rooting up of the plants by philanthropic persons anxious to
minimise the possibility of children suffering from the fatal
habit of subjecting everything to the test of taste.
Agriculture is essentially an interference with the balance
of Nature. Man deliberately endeavours to exterminate
many plants which he puts to no use, in order to clear
a larger area for the few species which he can utilise. As it
has been in the past, so it must be in the future.