THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN. 171 



THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



By DANIEL TREMBLY MACDOUGAL, 

 DIRECTOR OF THE LABORATORIES. 



A BOTANICAL garden is a museum of plants in the broadest sense 

 of the term, and its chief purpose is to represent, by means of 

 living specimens so far as possible, the principal types of the vegetation 

 of the globe. It is obviously impossible to cultivate on any small area 

 more than a few thousand of the quarter of a million of species in 

 existence, and hence the plantations are supplemented by preserved 

 specimens to illustrate the forms, which, by reasons of limitation of 

 space, climate and soil, cannot be grown in the locality. In addition 

 the species which formed the vegetation of the previous geological 

 periods are represented by fossil specimens completing the history of 

 the plant world so far as it is known, and yielding suggestions as to 

 the descent of the present types. 



Two general educational purposes are served by an institution of 

 this character. Its collections are arranged to present information 

 on the form, relationship, mode of life, habit and general biological 

 character of the principal types of vegetation, in such manner as to 

 be capable of comprehension by persons unacquainted with the tech- 

 nical aspects of the subject. Further interpretation of such facts 

 may be made by means of books, journals, and lectures devoted entirely 

 to this phase of the subject. 



The material accumulated for the exploitation of popular knowl- 

 edge of plants also affords an excellent basis for the induction of 

 students into the more strictly scientific aspects of botany, and when 

 supplemented by laboratories furnished with apparatus, miscroscopes, 

 and other instruments of precision, the activities of these students may 

 be carried beyond the frontiers of the subject in the investigation and 

 discovery of new facts and phenomena. This extension of the bounda- 

 ries of knowledge concerning the plant world may be carried on 

 to advantage, only when a library is at hand, which contains all 

 of the more important literature bearing upon the subject. The 

 descriptions of the results of such researches should be made in publica- 

 tions devoted exclusively to this purpose, in accordance with the practice 

 of all the more important botanical institutions in the world. 



The general scope of the New York Botanical Garden has already 

 been described by the writer in a previous number of this magazine 

 (January, 1897). The greater part of its actual construction and or- 



