2 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 
city of adoption. Perhaps the fact that the Garden in no way 
appears on the tax bills of the citizens of St. Louis, as do the 
Art Museum, the Zoo, the Publie Library, ete., may aceount 
for a certain lack of local interest. 
Unfortunately the impression seems to be rather wide- 
spread that the original endowment for the Garden was quite 
sufficient to maintain it through an unlimited period of 
expansion and progress. That it costs more to maintain an 
institution of this kind, keeping it abreast of the changes 
and demands of the times, than could possibly have been 
foreseen by Mr. Shaw is obvious to any one who carefully 
considers the matter, and during the past few years, with a 
relatively fixed income, the effort to prevent the Garden from 
falling below a respectable standard has been greater than 
might be supposed. It should also be borne in mind that 
one of the chief means of support for the Garden, provided 
by Mr. Shaw, has never yielded anything worth mention- 
ing. Quite apart from the fact that there has never been, 
on the part of the City administration or the publ at large, 
the slightest tangible evidence of its appreciation of the 
Garden, the Trustees have as yet been unable to realize 
anything from the two-hundred-foot strip reserved by Mr. 
Shaw around Tower Grove Park as a definite source of in- 
come for the Garden. With taxes and the expense of keeping 
up the revenue-producing property of the estate gradually 
mounting, the sum available for the maintenance of the Gar- 
den is gradually growing less, and unless some relief is 
forthcoming within a comparatively short time, there will be 
no other alternative than to curtail in a very definite fashion 
some of the more attractive features now maintained. Sim- 
ilar institutions, particularly in this country, not only receive 
large appropriations from the city but likewise obtain gifts 
from private individuals which enable them to go forward at 
a pace with which the Missouri Botanical Garden cannot hope 
to compete. There is no good reason why public-spirited in- 
dividuals in St. Louis, interested in either the scientific or 
popular aspects of floriculture and horticulture, should not 
feel constrained to add to the original endowment of Mr. 
Shaw. While it is true that Mr. Shaw’s name is so definitely 
associated with the Garden that no other benefactor could 
hope to supersede him by a gift, no matter how large, it is 
likewise a fact that there are many special activities which 
could be specifically designated for support and with which 
