SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR. 15 
approach of cold weather, and about 800 of these were 
distributed to hospitals, mission schools and similar chari- 
ties, about half of the number going to the kindergartens 
of the public school system, in all of which places they 
have done good. A part of this potted material has also 
been reserved for exchange purposes. 
In the early spring, a much needed extension of the 
water supply of the grounds was effected under the direc- 
tion of Professor J. B. Johnson, this extension making 
possible the provision of water closets in place of the earth 
closets placed in the arboretum,* besides adding greatly to 
the facility and certainty with which the garden lawns and 
beds are watered. 
The steam plant by which the herbarium and museum 
buildings and the Director’s residence are heated ¢ having 
proved wasteful of fuel because the pipes were laid too 
near the surface of the ground, a renovation of the entire 
system was made during the autumn, under the direction 
of Professor J. H. Kinealy. Unfortunately, the absence 
of deep sewers in the vicinity of the Garden makes it 
impossible to drain the boiler pit and similar excavations, 
so that a considerable amount of labor is expended each 
year in freeing them from water, but with this exception 
the steam plant is believed now to be in good working order. 
Early in the season, the possibility of combining the 
numerous fire holes of the greenhouses in the center of the 
Garden f was also referred to Professor Kinealy, on whose 
report the Board decided that the cost of providing a 
central boiler plant, with the piping changes necessitated 
by the consolidation, would be so much greater than the 
evident saving in labor in firing for the houses now heated 
as to render it undesirable for the present to attempt such 
a consolidation. 
The fruticetum,§ or more properly orchard, in which 
1,550 feet of drain tile was laid in 1890, while in the follow- 
* Second Report, 21. ¢ Third Report, 13. 
¢ Second Report, 23. § Sixth Report, 14. 
