Address to the American Society of Plant Physiologists.

It was most gracious of you, _Mr. President, to invite me to attend this meeting; and it is a very great pleasure to me, a rare privilege, to be present with you all on this happy occasion while we are celebrating together the 30th anniversary of the founding of this Society. I have often been asked to write a brief history of the early days of the American Society of Plant Physiologists, but have always declined because I could not do so without being put in the position of appraising many of my own activities; of detailing events that should be left to an impartial historian who could examine the facts objectively, and not overemphasize the part I played in those early days. I would like to make it perfectly clear to all of you now, that it was not my privilege to have anything to do with the actual founding of the Society, even if I did serve as its first president. During the autumn of 1923, I was enjoying a very busy and timeconsuming vacation from the University of Chicago. Specifically, I had been offered and had accepted a temporary post as assistant to the Secretary of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS). In this position, I was commuting between Baltimore and Washington, D. C., three days a week, and continuing my soil-science research during the remainder of the week with some of the Livingston apparatus. In the Washington office of the AAAS during the four months preceding the Cincinnati meeting in December, 1923, not only was it my duty to handle a great deal of the Association's correspondence, but also to undertake the task of initiation of an exhibition of scientific apparatus, the first of its kind in the Association's history. This new venture required a great deal of time and planning. It proved so successful that it at once became a permanent part of the Association's program. There was obviously no time to take much interest in what was going on, and what was rumored to be taking place, in plant physiological circles. On a few occasions, Dr. Livingston and I indulged in the pleasant pastime of sitting on opposite sides of a laboratory table, our feet appropriately propped up on the table, and exchanged views and speculated on what might be in prospect. But, as far as either of us could go, was to agree that, if there was to be a Society of Plant Physiologists, we ought to belong to it because of our respective positions in that field. Dr.