JULIUS SACHS. 159 



on a new botanical laboratory in spite of the fine new 

 buildings that were erected for the other sciences. He 

 contented himself with the addition of a very beautiful and 

 suitable lecture-room. He was particularly anxious about 

 the garden, which was laid out on barren soil made up 

 chiefly out of the rubbish-heap of an old fortress glacis. 

 He gave it his own personal and devoted attention, and was 

 rewarded by a luxuriant vegetation where formerly there 

 had been but a barren waste. Later on he divided off a 

 small part of the garden for special purposes and this he 

 attended to himself with the help of his laboratory servant. 

 There he made open-air experiments, and there also was the 

 well-known Schilderhaus (sentry-box) for experiments in 

 etiolation, etc. The cultivation of strong, healthy plants for 

 the purposes of investigation was in his opinion an essential 

 part of experimental physiological work ; he excelled in the 

 art and deemed it worthy of individual, personal attention. 

 There were almost invariably plants growing in his work- 

 room, but in summer time, when growth was going on in the 

 plant-world, it was essential to him to make constant obser- 

 vations out of doors and to meditate upon his investigations 

 as he strolled about the garden. 



The astonishing amount of work that he managed to eret 

 through from his earliest days could not but affect his consti- 

 tution. He said himself that he had paid for each of his 

 books with wearisome ill-health, and even the strongest 



o 



nerves could not stand such ceaseless labour. Added to 

 this came his wife's long tedious illness which undoubtedly 

 helped to undermine his strength. 



Bearing these facts in mind it is perhaps more possible 

 to form a just estimate of his relations with the outer world 

 The latter part of his life found him a lonely man who had 

 estranged many of his friends by bitter and sometimes even 

 unjust criticisms. We shall perhaps condone his trenchant 

 animadversions upon the botanical writings of his day if 

 we remember how his sensitive, highly strung tempera- 

 ment must have suffered at times from the irritation of pri- 

 vate affairs. And then again, science represented to him all 

 that is highest in life, and it followed that any work which 



