BOTANIC GARDENS. 183 



other property in and near St. Louis. The scope of this institu- 

 tion may be best illustrated by the following quotation from the 

 will of its founder : " With a view to having for the use of the 

 public a botanical garden, easily accessible, which should be for- 

 ever kept up for the cultivation and propagation of plants, flow- 

 ers, fruit and forest trees, and other productions of the vegetable 

 kingdom, and a museum and library connected therewith, and de- 

 voted to the same and to the science of botany, horticulture, and 

 allied objects." It is connected with the Washington Univer- 

 sity, which has a School of Botany also endowed by Mr. Shaw in 

 1885. The botanic garden occupies an area of forty-seven acres. 

 The grounds are laid out in such a manner as to be highly at- 

 tractive, and as many as thirty thousand people have passed the 

 gates in a single day. Much important work in plant taxonomy 

 has been accomplished in this institution, and the facilities for 

 work may be set forth in the following official statement : 



" The herbarium is supplemented by a large collection of 

 woods, including veneer transparencies and slides for the micro- 

 scope. The library, containing about eight thousand volumes and 

 ten thousand pamphlets, includes most of the standard periodicals 

 and proceedings of the learned bodies, a good collection of mor- 

 phological and physiological works, nearly five hundred carefully 

 selected botanical volumes published before the period of Lin- 

 nseus, an unusually large number of monographs of groups of 

 cryptogams and flowering plants, and the entire manuscript notes 

 and sketches representing the painstaking work of Engelmann. 



" The great variety of living plants represented in the garden 

 and the large herbarium, including the collections of Bernhardi 

 and Engelmann, render the garden facilities exceptionally good 

 for research in systematic botany, in which direction the library 

 also is exceptionally strong. The living collections and library 

 also afford unusual opportunity for morphological, anatomical, 

 and physiological studies, while the plant-house facilities for ex- 

 perimental work are steadily increasing. The E. Lewis Sturte- 

 vant Pre-Linnsean Library, in connection with the opportunity 

 afforded for the cultivation of vegetables and other useful plants, 

 is favorable also for the study of cultivated plants and the modi- 

 fications they have undergone." 



The New York Botanic Garden is the most recent acquisition 

 to the list of these institutions in America. Its establishment 

 was authorized by the Legislature in 1891, but the enabling act 

 being defective, no steps could be taken in its organization until 

 1894. To comply with the act of incorporation, a sum of two 

 hundred and fifty thousand dollars was raised by private sub- 

 scription, and then the Commissioners of Public Parks of New 

 York City were authorized to set aside two hundred and fifty 



