Abstract
COAL, oil, iron and steel enter so largely into the working of the complicated civilisation of the present that it is apt to be overlooked that they are but the tools for collecting, distributing, elaborating, protecting and too often destroying the organic products on which the life of man, his culture and most of his comforts depend. Directly or indirectly, these products are the gift of the living green mantle of the earth. The spread of population that has taken place concurrently with the evolution of modern industry has brought about great, and is likely to bring about still greater, changes in the earth's vegetation. Some of those transformations, such as the displacement of the native flora of prairie lands by cereals and other crops, are inevitable and, from the human point of view, beneficial; others, like the reckless destruction of forests in many parts of the world, have wasted the present and heavily mortgaged the future. The sooner the problem of ensuring a rational utilisation of the vegetation of the earth is faced in more organised fashion than at present the better.
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Work and Influence of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Nature 115, 897–899 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115897a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115897a0