47 
REPORT OF THE CURATOR OF PLANTS FOR 1914 
Dr. C. Stuarr Gacer, Drrecror. 
Sir: I take pleasure in submitting my report as Curator of 
Plants for the year ending 31 December IQI4. 
General Maintenance and Construction Force 
As usual this force has carried on all regular maintenance work 
such as mowing, cleaning, and small repair jobs on the grounds. 
Work was started on March 17 and the force was laid off for the 
winter on November 14. We employed an average of 19 laborers 
per week for the season, varying from 7 in slack periods to 30 in 
our busiest weeks. Besides the purely maintenance work, this 
force has carried on the following constructive work: digging 
trench for evergreen hedge near building; clearing ground and 
getting it ready for children’s garden; digging and filling 1,283 
feet of trenches for water pipes, many of which had to be lowered 
owing to changes of grade; excavation for and construction of 
cinder path along the wild flower walk in Section II; grading the 
area south of the museum embankment including the northern end 
of the esplanade, work necessitated by the change in plan, a total 
of about 1,700 cubic yards of subsoil and 1,800 cubic yards of 
topsoil being moved in this work; digging 156 large holes for trees 
on esplanade and filling same with topsoil; grading area of ex- 
perimental plot in nursery and building steel wire fence around 
same ;* cleaning of all catch-basins, man-holes and hundreds of 
feet of the old drainage system, preparatory to the attachment of 
the newly constructed drainage system to the old mains; grading 
and finishing the area along Flatbush Avenue near the old site of 
Section III; grading near the site of the proposed steps from the 
circle in the path to the meadow, along Flatbush Avenue; build- 
ing a new dam in the brook ; stripping topsoil from and grading 
600 feet of path lines, improperly graded by the grading contractor 
in 1913; grading and topsoiling the area near the conservatories 
and laboratory building; constructing bulkhead and filling behind 
* Through the courtesy of the American Steel and Wire Co. one of 
their foremen supervised the construction of the fence. 
