The models were to be sent in two shipments each year. The 

 contract stipulated that the payment for the models, 8,800 

 marks per year, would be payable in half-yearly installments, 

 4,400 marks on January first and 4,400 marks on July first. It 

 was also agreed that all expenses of freight from the place of 

 manufacture to Cambridge, of insurance and of consular certif- 

 icates would be defrayed. On the 10th of the following month, 

 May 1890, the two friends of the Museum who had agreed to 

 finance the project — Mrs. Elizabeth Ware and her daughter, 

 Miss Mary Lee Ware of Boston — presented the collection to the 

 President and Fellows of Harvard College as a memorial to the 

 late Dr. Charles Eliot Ware of the class of 1834. It was gratefully 

 accepted and became a distinctive part of the Botanical Museum 

 collections. 



In the early stages of the assembly of this collection in Cam- 

 bridge, it was shown to the public at various times. Later, when 

 the collection assumed its final form and was exhibited in dis- 

 play cases made for the purpose, it became and still is very 

 popular with the public. From 80,000 to more than 100,000 

 visitors view the models every year. Visitors from every state in 

 the union and over fifty countries have signed our visitors' regis- 

 ter. No record has been kept of the number of students who have 

 visited the collection for study, but the number must be in the 

 thousands. 



When the production of the collection was started, judicious 

 choices had be made concerning species to be represented, inas- 

 much as the duration of the project was then expected to extend 

 over a relatively short time span. As it turned out, the original 

 ten-year contract was renewed a number of times, so that even- 

 tually the collection included a good representation of the Plant 

 Kingdom, from the simplest forms to the most complex and it is 

 now arranged in accord with the Engler-Gilg phylogenetic sys- 

 tem of classification. 



The Blaschkas worked from material grown in their own 

 garden from seeds and cuttings sent from this country and other 

 sources. Some plants unsuited to growing outdoors in their area 

 were made available to them from the greenhouses at the castle 

 in nearby Pillnitz. In 1892, they needed certain plants not locally 

 available, so Rudolph came to the United States and to the 



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