The Future of Plants in Relation to Man

Abstract

In this final chapter it will be our purpose to attempt some forecast of the relation of plants to man in the future. Although we do hear that we live in the “Atomic Era” or the “Space Age,” and even though our children tend to grow up in cities where they may see none of the usual and obvious aspects of the dependence of man upon plants, still there is practically no weakening of the bond that unites us to the plants. Even though we buy our food wrapped and processed from a supermarket, the energy stored up in it is still acquired by the old-fashioned process of photosynthesis, in which the sun’s radiated energy is captured by plants through the intervention of their chlorophyll. Great may be the uses of atomic energy, but so far they show no signs of including the provision of energy for living processes, and it seems that man will be dependent on plants directly and indirectly for as far into the future as human imagination can be projected. Even if artificial—“in vitro” — photosynthesis is developed, it will be a very long time before this process could provide for the ever expanding population of mankind on the earth’s surface.