58 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN, 
higher’plane, better educated men, engaging in the pursuit 
of the commercial florist. 
The Chairman: ‘To collect every information respect- 
ing the culture and treatment of all plants and trees, as 
well culinary as ornamental ’’ is officially stated to be the 
object of the famous Royal Horticultural Society of Lon- 
don. The object of any horticultural institution may well 
conform to this outline, so far as its ability and means 
permit. Collecting information, however, is much more 
than compiling; and the institution which shall attempt to 
come up to the standard set by the Royal Society, must 
soon assume the character of a scientific establishment if it 
rightly estimates the work that it has laid out for its per- 
formance. For many years the grounds at Rothamsted, 
England, have been celebrated because of the extensive ex- 
periments on the laws of growth of plants which have been 
carried out there under the direction of Gilbert and Lawes. 
In our own country, it is not many years since one or two 
experiment stations were started in a small way by private 
means or under the care of some educational institution. 
But thanks to the efforts of the friends of progressive 
agriculture, and under the leadership of a representative of 
our own state, the National Government now appropriates 
each year a fairly large sum for the use of each state in the 
prosecution of such work as properly falls under the de- 
nomination of experimental investigation. Horticulture, 
in one or another of its branches, is the subject of ex- 
periment at nearly all of these Stations. It comprises so 
much in chemistry and physics and meteorology, that it 
requires the best guidance possible in these directions. We 
have with us this evening one who is recognized over the 
entire country as eminently qualified to speak as a scientific 
man on at least two of these subjects. It is the more felic- 
itous that he also represents the Board of Trustees of the 
Garden. I have the pleasure of introducing to you Profes- 
sor F. E. Nipher, of Washington University, who will illus- 
trate what is meant by ‘‘ experimental work.’’ 
