I 



132 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



manufacturer of Bessemer steel at what moment carbon 

 enough has been burnt out of the seething white-hot mass 

 of metal in the converter, also reveals to the physicist the 

 constituent elements of the glorious orb which floods this 

 earth with its life-giving light. To the discovery of those 

 laws and their application to the wants of our daily life, we 

 are constantly more and more indebted for the comforts, 

 even for the necessities, of civilization. Our tables bear 

 contributions from every clime and zone, the knowledge of 

 whose properties and value, even the methods of their pro- 

 duction, are the gift of natural science: and in respect of 

 some of the most valuable of them, under the fierce com- 

 petition of modern industry and trade, that knowledge has 

 become one of the conditions of success in conductinji the 

 commerce of the civilized world. 



And yet this trust, created for the promotion of a branch 

 of science which has to do with the vegetable products of 

 all countries, has its own local habitation. By choice and 

 by adoption, Henry Shaw was a citizen of St. Louis, a citi- 

 zen of Missouri. In founding this trust, he gave to it the 

 name of this great State, a State whose boundless resources, 

 mineral and vegetable, are only beginning to be known. 



We are this evening honored, gentlemen, and the Trustees 

 of the Missouri Botanical Garden are extremely gratified, 

 by the presence of the Chief Executive officer of this State : 

 and in announcing the sentiment, " The State of Missouri," 

 I can ask no fitter or more competent man to respond than 

 Governor Francis. 



GOVERNOR FRANCIS. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: I am almost afraid, in 

 this company, to give or attempt to give the author of any 

 sentiment or expression. I believe it was Doctor Holmes, 

 however, who said that the society of men of genius was 



