16 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
much-smaller, being estimated at about 3,000 persons. On 
both of these occasions the class of visitors was quite different 
from that seen on working days, owing to the fact that many 
people are unable to visit the Garden except on these Sun- 
days ; but very few persons of questionable appearance were 
noticed, the visitors were quiet and orderly, and practically 
no disposition to violate the rules was noticed. 
As I predicted in my last report, much work has proved 
necessary in placing the Garden in suitable repair. This 
has been very largely a work of reconstruction, nearly 
all of the woodwork which needed repairing being almost 
totally decayed except fora surface film protected by paint, 
so that on attempting to replace any portion that had given 
way it was found necessary to tear down the abutting parts, 
their removal in turn necessitating that of still others. 
Even the softer brick and the limestone prove to be in 
much the same condition, and in many places the mortar or 
cement in which they were laid has become completely dis- 
integrated. Consequently, the hope that I expressed a 
year since that the Garden might soon be in a fair state of 
repair is as yet far from realized, although this work has 
been carried forward. with as great rapidity as the finances 
of the Board permitted, and I am informed that more work 
of this character has been done during the past year than 
for at least ten years preceding. 
Without going into the. minutie of these repairs, I men- 
tion among the more important of the steps taken, the fol- 
lowing: — 
The limestone coping over the Gate House has for some 
years been badly cracked in many places, and the action of 
dampness and frost has so far opened the crevices and 
joints that early in the season it was considered unsafe to 
allow the stone to remain longer in this fragmentary con- 
dition, owing to the probability that large overhanging 
pieces might at any moment fall, endangering the life of 
persons passing through the gateway,— one such piece hav- 
ing, in fact, fallen several years since. On examination it 
