EEPORTS OF DEPARTMENTS. 45 



ingtoii ; a few have been purchased. We now have about 555 species and vari- 

 eties, many of them very choice and some of them rare. A small store room 

 has been built, ten feet square, back of the green-house for boxes, soil, moss, 

 etc. The sales at the green-house could easily be increased by finishing the 

 propagating pits, or by converting the present houses into a commercial es tab- 

 lishment. The latter would not be in accordance with the design of the house. 

 It is now serving a very useful purpose for instruction in botany and horti- 

 culture. Students every day, at all times of day, when not in classes or at 

 work, are seen loitering about the green-house, to study the century plant, cacti, 

 night blooming cereus, palms, tree ferns, cycas, banana, tea, coffee, India 

 rubber, euphorbioe, nepenthes (a queer tropical pitcher plant), acacias, begonias, 

 coccolobia, or some other new and curious or common plant referred to in the 

 lecture room. They are amused and instructed ; they are refined by the influ- 

 ence of the beautiful plants, well kept in the beautiful green-house. It is 

 certainly a great satisfaction to have such an attraction at the College, and a 

 greater satisfaction to have it for illustration and experiment. 



The flower beds are still quite limited in extent. They have been much im- 

 proved by digging out, to the depth of two feet, the poor sandy soil, and filling 

 in with rich loam, clay and manure. 



THE LAWX 



by the green-house and elsewhere has been considerably improved by grad- 

 ing and enriching the soil. There is a vast amount of work still needed in this 

 direction. There is scarcely a square rod of lawns or drives in a condition satis- 

 factory to the one in charge. He does the best he can with his limited 

 means. There has been bnt little done on the drives for want of means. A few 

 stone gutters, a little sodding, a little gravel added here and there, is about all. 

 A few trees have been added. Those previously planted have been well cared for, 

 and with few exceptions have done well. The farm department needed all their 

 mowers when we needed one on the lawn. Our old Buckeye was used up. We 

 purchased a light Champion mower, of Warder, Mitchell & Co., of Ohio. We 

 were delighted with its use in all respects. The purchase of a new mower was 

 not allowed in the estimates a year ago. The account of the tSecretary shows 

 a good deal of students' labor on the ''care of grounds." This includes the 

 keeping in order — in but poor order I am bound to say — the drives, paths, care 

 of shade trees, picking up about buildings, cutting and getting in the hay from 

 the laAvn, etc., etc. There is a good deal of ground to go over, including, when 

 all done, over two and three-fourths (2f ) miles in length of drives and paths. 



TEAM. 



One of the horses in our garden team had become unfit for hard work, the 

 other was getting old. It was thought best to sell one at a hundred dollars, and 

 turn the other over to the farm for breeding. This involved some extra expense 

 in the purchase of a new younger team. This necessary change is another not 

 jjrovided for in estimates last winter. Our old cart horse, "Old Prof," is 

 still very good, though slow. He is twenty-five years old this season, and came 

 here soon after the College opened. 



FORESTEY AKD iyURSERY. 



This has all been put together in a strip next the road, north of the houses 

 occupied by Dr. Kedzie and Prof. Fairchild. The patch contains long rows of 



