4 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 
Medical Research has suggested to many botanists the de- 
sirability of having something of the same kind for the funda- 
mental investigation of the destructive diseases which cause 
such tremendous losses to all engaged in the growing of 
plants for pleasure or for profit. While it is true that work 
along this line has been carried on by the United States De- 
partment of Agriculture and various state and private insti- 
tutions, it is universally acknowledged that limitations of one 
sort and another have made it impossible for any existing 
organization to undertake an exhaustive and comprehensive 
study of the fundamental problems of plant pathology. Just 
as many medical schools have for years conducted a certain 
amount of medical research, it remained for the Rockefeller 
Tustitute, with its corps of trained experts, to advance med- 
ical research to the point of greatest efficiency. The facilities 
already existing at the Missouri Botanical Garden which 
could readily be devoted to the establishment of a research 
institution for plant pathology are very considerable, and it 
is safe to say that the initial expense as well as the future 
maintenance could practically be eut in half by placing such 
an institute at the Garden. The lhbrary and herbarium, with- 
out which no institute could hope to do satisfactory work, are 
already in existence, and the scientific staff, so far as it goes, 
is exceptionally well qualified to carry on fundamental 
research in plant pathology. To an unusual degree, there- 
fore, any money given for such an institute could be applied 
directly to the object in view and would not have to be dissi- 
pated in accumulating a site, an administrative staff, or many 
of the other accessories necessary to start the work. Mr. 
Shaw, by his will, intended to establish a scientific institu- 
tion quite as much as a garden for the enjoyment of the 
public. Besides starting a herbarium and library and pro- 
viding for their enlargement, he specifically declared that 
scientific investigations in botany were to be promoted. At 
one time he even contemplated erecting laboratories and resi- 
dences for the scientific staff opposite the main gate of the 
Garden, with the idea of founding a school of botany such 
as this country at that time had never dreamed of. One of 
the monuments erected by Mr. Shaw in the Garden bears 
the inscription: ‘‘In Honor of American Science,’’ and 
another is to commemorate the victory of science over igno- 
ranece. Nothing could be more fitting than that there be estab- 
lished within the walls of the Garden a scientific institute 
