EDITORIAL RETROSPECT
Eight months ago the Journal was launched with a mixture of hope and doubt, but a determination to succeed, and it may not be without interest briefly to review its progress. The object, as explained in the circular inviting contributions, and in the first editorial, was to be the publication, in the first place, of original botanical work done in India or on Indian plants, which would not naturally appear in the existing, somewhat technical, journals of this country and, in the second, of abstracts or reviews of other papers likely to be of interest to workers in India. Though supported by nearly every important botanist in India, the proposal met with misgivings from several who thought the "times were not yet ripe." "You will be fifty years in advance of your time" wrote one friend ; "It may start all right but will soon fizzle out" said another.
The idea was for quite a moderate journal of about 24 pages, but to appear monthly, so as to allow of rapid publication of work. The first number appeared, in September, and except in February, when pressure of other work at the Press prevented publication, and the next was therefore a 'double number', the issues have been monthly. The present and the January issues are also 'double', so that in the eight months ten numbers have appeared with an average of over thirty pages of original matter and diagrams and about four of abstracts to each. The original papers have been on nearly every branch of pure botany, i.e., on Fungi, Algae, Liverworts, Mosses, Gymnosperms, the taxonomy of flowering plants, General and Physio- logical Histology and Morphology, Physiology, Oecology and a Syste- matic Flora of a country. Abstracts and reviews have appeared of over 50 papers and books, and occupied 40 pages of small type.
All this has been possible only with the active co-operation of botanists in India who have not only subscribed to the Journal, but also contributed to its pages : and it proves, I think we may claim, that the Journal has met a need, that botanical work in India was advanced enough for it, that the times were ripe. It remains to disprove the pessimist and keep the Journal alive. I have no fear about this. The Journal has started successfully, and won't fizzle out. It now circulates all over India, — though Bengal rather lags behind the other Provinces — in Canada, the U.S.A., England, Italy, Ceylon, Singapore, Australia and even Fiji : and without doubt the close of another year will see it covering a wider area and with
