FOURTH ANNUAL BANQUET, 43 



Director never be cramped for money or men for tasks 

 like this. It belongs to the highest class of applied scien- 

 tific work. 



To show you that others feel as I do about your magnifi- 

 cent establishment, let me tell you that there is a citizen of 

 Massachusetts whose work in the improvement of plants 

 has been largely done in that state and the State of 

 New York. To aid him in his researches, he has accumu- 

 lated a very large collection of books antedating Linnaeus, 

 by whom this sort of work was done about the middle of 

 the last century. Anterior to the time of Linnaeus, many 

 great botanists had written upon plants, had recorded their 

 impressions and made their drawings, so that we find in the 

 record, imperfect as it is, descriptions of these varieties 

 which Linnaeus and others have regarded as improved. 

 To collect and study these books has been his passion ; to 

 get these books together in order to obtain the earliest 

 possible views regarding all the varieties. Having brought 

 these all together at great cost and labor, he sought a place 

 for their preservation. Where could there be a better place 

 to keep them than in the noble library of the Massachu- 

 setts Horticultural Society, or in the library of Harvard 

 University ? Yet this citizen of Massachusetts sends them 

 where? To the Shaw School of Botany! 



Although I may perhaps be blamed for saying it, I 

 think he did right ; but, if your Director is embarrassed in 

 any way in carrying out the class of studies which this 

 citizen wants to have carried out, I shall think that this 

 library has been sent to the wrong place. I do not think, 

 however, your Director will be cramped in any way. I have 

 no question that 6ome of the students under your Director 

 will lead the study of plants along new lines, and in that 

 way make substantial contributions to this most important 

 branch of applied science. 



In the next place, let me ask, where can timber trees be 

 better studied than here ? Where can fibres and tans and 

 a hundred practical things be investigated to better advan- 



