THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDES. 219 



to have been spared from the force without neglect of some essential. 

 Yet, though over-work and a permissible if entirely undesirable neglect 

 of details of convenience in use, but not of preservative care, have 

 been necessary, each of the higher employees has every year found 

 time to do something worth doing in the field of investigation. The 

 achievements, it is true, are neither as many nor as great as the 

 workers or the management of the establishment would have wished 

 them to be, but considering the fact that the garden has been in 

 course of transition from the pleasure grounds of a gentleman to a 

 scientific establishment, and that what has been done has been care- 

 fully done, they are not insignificant or unworthy, and each of the 

 thirteen annual reports on the institution thus far printed contains 

 at least one scientific publication of original results, of permanent 

 interest to botanical workers. What will come of the staff of capable 

 investigators that it may shortly be expected to gather together, is a 

 matter of conjecture only but the conjecture refers rather to the 

 success with which men may be selected than to the opportunities 

 that they will enjoy for the most earnest and serious application of 

 which they are capable. 



Research is coming to be recognized as of greater value for the 

 practical development of our natural resources, with the passage of 

 every year. The investigator sometimes sees in his subject only a 

 problem that he must solve whether its solution can ever be of value 

 or not. Sometimes he appears to be so constituted that the suspicion 

 that it can result in anything useful is deterrent to him. Some- 

 times his chief interest lies in the very possibility of its utilization. 

 But, in any case, no fact well made out and properly correlated is 

 valueless, and the results of the most unpractical of discoveries are 

 often utilized in commerce or in the arts with surprising prompt- 

 ness. While the research thus far carried on at the garden has been 

 dictated largely by consideration of the needs of botanical science 

 alone, or the personal interest of the investigator, I should not like 

 to close this reference to it without mentioning that the studies of 

 one of the intructors in the school of botany, Dr. von Schrenk, have 

 taken the direction of the causes and means of prevention of the decay 

 of timber, on which, under the authority of the National Department 

 of Agriculture, he has done work which has brought him merited 

 scientific recognition, while at the same time its practical results in 

 the saving to railroads and other large users of timber already promise 

 very large financial returns to the community at large. 



While its own staff is, therefore, reasonably certain to utilize the 

 facilities of the garden in an ever growing degree for the performance 

 of research work, the results of which are and will always be an ample 



