MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN pe 
needed for the Garden. In a letter! dated October 18, 1856 
he wrote to Dr. Engelmann, then at Kew, saying, “Get all 
the plans and catalogues you conveniently can. My mind 
is intent on the undertaking which I am anxious to com- 
mence, and by dint of reading and observations am endeavor- 
ing to gather up some crumbs of botanical science.” Ap- 
parently his first idea had been to get only such as he 
needed himself, for in this same letter he states, “Hope you 
will not give yourself much trouble in the seeking of these 
works, as He might probably find some others equally or 
more suitable to my sbisduthat is, to acquire a knowledge 
of botany and horticulture myself and diffuse a taste for 
the same among others. In the purchase of books, you 
can go to the amount of one hundred dollars.” 
Dr. Engelmann was then at the Kew Gardens and he 
interested Sir William J. Hooker, the Director, in Mr. 
Shaw’s Garden. On August 10, 1857, Sir William Hooker 
wrote to Mr. Shaw? that “very few appendages to a garden 
of this kind are of more importance for instruction than 
a library and an economic museum, and these gradually in- 
crease like a rolling snow-ball.”’ This letter and Dr. Engel- 
mann’s influence seem to have decided Mr. Shaw to start 
a botanical library and museum. In a letter to Dr. Engel- 
mann,! dated September 15, 1857, he says, “As to the 
botanical library, if you will have the goodness to send me 
a list of such works as you consider the most essential, I 
will select from them what may appear to me most useful 
for the present. As to the herbarium you mention of Prof. 
Bernhardi, if it is in good order you can purchase the same 
at the price you mention ($600).” 
The Bernhardi herbarium was bought three months later 
and at a lesser figure, as is shown by the following receipt: 
“Leipzig, Saxony, Dec. 18, 1857. 
“Mr. Henry Shaw at St. Louis 
“to Theodor Bernhardi agent. 
“to the Herbarium or collection of Plants of the late Prof. Joh. 
Jae. Bernhardi of Erfurt, consisting of 374 packages (said to con- 
tain about 40,000 species) of dried plants. 
“Prix dollars 400. 
“Reed. Pay’t. by Dr. George Engelmann. 
“Theodor Bernhardi.”’ 
‘The letter from Dr. Engelmann to Mr. Shaw telling 
about the herbarium cannot be found, but apparently the 
collection was not fully labeled, as he writes,! on January 
1 Engelmann letters, vol. 8, in Mo. Bot. Gard. 
2 Mo, Bot. Gard. Rept., vol. 1, p. 13. 1890. 
