38 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
construct a large palm house, in which larger specimens may be grown 
than in any of the present houses, and to this palm house will ultimately 
be annexed arather extensive system of houses of the same general con- 
struction as the house built in 1894. With these facilities, granting an 
adequate maintenance fund and competent gardeners, the floricultural 
side of the Garden will, I think, be amply provided for. 
For horticulture, in the general sense of vegetable and fruit gardening, 
the fruticetum, the renovation of which was begun in 1890 by the plant- 
ing of a small collection of trees, which are just coming into fruit, and 
continued during the past season by the removal of most of the old trees 
and the substitution of carefully selected young nursery stock, together 
with the present vegetable garden at the rear of the Director’s residence, 
will serve all necessary purposes, so far as the work at the Garden is 
concerned. Ultimately, it may prove necessary to acquire suitable 
orchard and garden property somewhere in the country for the perform- 
ance of scientific experiments, but there is no reason why land within 
the present bounds of the Shaw property should be reserved for this pur- 
pose in making plans for the future, since experimental work of this 
kind, should it ever be carried on on a larger scale than is possible on 
the space now reserved, will undoubtedly necessitate removal from the 
smoke and soot of the city. For this work the vegetable house and 
grapery constructed in 1895, in the vegetable garden, can be extended by 
the enlargement of the present house and the building beside it of several 
other similar houses, as these may be needed. 
For educational purposes, aside from those served by the maintenance 
of a large and varied collection of named plants, representing those of 
purely botanical interest as well as those yielding useful products or of 
decorative value, synoptically arranged groups must be especially 
planted. Up to the present time, it has been possible to do such planting 
only in a limited way; but whenever the revenue of the Board shall 
justify it, it will prove desirable to extend the garden so as to include 
the part which is now kept as farm and pasture, lying in general to the 
southwest of the present garden, and bounded roughly by the Manchester 
Road, Shenandoah Avenue, Alfred Avenue, Magnolia Avenue, and the 
limits of the present garden. This tract includes some 82.5 acres, of 
which about 20 acres would be cut off by a line drawn from the southern 
point of the arboretum to the farm house, and from that extending west- 
wardly to the intersection of Shenandoah and Alfred Avenues. In pro- 
viding for a future extension of the garden, this tract, which is 
geographically separable from the remainder of the farm, offers an op- 
portunity for securing at once a very attractive piece of landscape gar- 
dening and a synopsis of the flora of the United States. So far as I 
know, no botanical garden has ever presented a synopsis of the flora of 
the country in which it is situated, so arranged as to be artistically 
attractive; and this is perfectly possible in this 20-acre tract extending 
northwestward from the corner of Magnolia and Tower Grove Avenues. 
In this tract should be found representatives of all cultivable families of 
United States plants, comprising the more representative genera and a 
