(44°) 



III. Plans for New Furniture. The congested con- 

 dition of all the collections and the prospect of being able to 

 obtain furniture for the museums generally, led to the con- 

 sideration and formulation of plans for the same early in the 

 year. Ultimately plans were adopted for many pieces of 

 furniture of special design, to accommodate amply and con- 

 veniently all the different types of specimens. Especial atten- 

 tion was given to devising the furniture to permit of ready 

 examination and handling of the specimens in the study col- 

 lections. 



riuseums. 



i. Accessions.* An aggregate of 2,234 specimens was 

 added to the museum equipment, in addition to the many 

 thousands available from the plant picture collections already 

 referred to. As heretofore much of the material came to the 

 institution as unsolicited gifts and by exchanges, and rela- 

 tively little by purchase. Gifts of desirable material have 

 been temporarily withheld at our request, for the want of per- 

 manent or even temporary means of caring for such speci- 

 mens. 



2. Preparation of Material and Appliances for Ex- 

 hibition. No noteworthy change from the methods of prep- 

 aration described in previous annual reports has been made, 

 but special devices for the disposition of individual specimens 

 or peculiar types of specimens have been worked out and are 

 gradually being installed. Appliances of a permanent char- 

 acter have been added to the museum equipment as follows : 



(a) Exhibition Blocks. I. Blocks for general museum pur- 

 poses were secured in the following sizes and quantities, 

 ebonized and placed in the exhibition cases. 



Size of block. Number of blocks. 



4x4 inches. 304 



4K X 4?4 " 201 



5^x454 " 306 



7 X 7 " 190 



* For detailed list of accessions see Journal of the New York Botanical 

 Garden, 3 : nos. 25-36. 



