FIRST ANNUAL BANQUET. 131 



ment of a knowledge of vegetable physiology, — a subject 

 which is by no means exhausted; — and by the study of 

 the diseases of plants and of the possible preventives or 

 remedies for such diseases, — a subject which is as yet 

 almost unexplored. I look forward to a great deal of 

 work that may be done in this way, and I hope that as time 

 goes on the Missouri Botanical Garden may play its part in 

 such work. 



And yet, the facilities that I have spoken of are only the 

 foundation for work. The character and strength of an 

 institution depend primarily upon laying a good founda- 

 tion, but afterwards upon having builders who can complete 

 a superstructure worthy of the foundation ; and I hope to 

 live to see the Garden the nucleus for a collection of botan- 

 ists who may be known at home and abroad as leaders in 

 the subjects of their specialties. If we realize what I 

 look forward to, I think that we shall carry out to its full- 

 est extent the extremely wise and broad plan of the Founder 

 of the Garden. 



The Chairman then called upon his Excellency, David R. 

 Francis, Governor of the State of Missouri, in the follow- 

 ing terms : — 



Gentlemen: Natural science belongs to no locality, to 

 no country, — I may add, to no historic time, for the ancient 

 records in which is found *' the testimony of the rocks," 

 take us back to periods whose duration the geologist and 

 paleeontologist confess their inability to determine. Its do- 

 main includes not merely every quarter of this terrestrial 

 globe, but the most distant and unfathomed realms of space. 

 Its votaries seek to discover those all-pervading, all-sus- 

 taining laws of Nature and of Nature's God, which assign 

 to every molecule and atom its place and function in the 

 universe, and in obedience to which myriads of blazing 

 suns, with their attendant planets and satellites, pursue 

 their stately march. The spectroscope, which tells the 



