26 
Appropriation for Additional Building 
The most important event during the year, and in fact during 
the entire history of the Garden, was the provision last spring, 
by private gift and city appropriation, of the sum of $200,000 
to make possible the completion of our buildings, and other per- 
manent improvements. The events leading up to this were as 
follows: 
The contract for the erection of the first sections of the labora- 
tory building and plant houses was let on January 18, 1912, a 
little over two years after the execution of the agreement (De- 
cember 10, 1909) between the City and the Institute providing 
for the establishment of the Garden, and a year and a half after 
the appointment of the first director. Owing to exasperating de- 
lays, these sections, comprising only one fifth of the laboratory 
building and about one sixth of the plant houses, were not com- 
pleted until the latter part of September, 1913, one year and eight 
months after the ground was broken. 
These first sections were considerably outgrown by the work 
of the Garden before they were occupied, but difficult adjustments 
were cheerfully made, in the expectation that funds for additional 
sections would be provided by the City within a few months. In 
response to the growing needs of the Garden and the demands 
of the public, the staff increased from four (its maximum num- 
ber during the occupation of temporary quarters in the Museum 
Building) to twelve; the library and herbarium entirely outgrew 
their temporary quarters, collections of exotic living plants con- 
tinued to be received by gift and otherwise until the small plant 
houses were congested to the extreme limit ; herbarium and filing 
cases, desks and storage shelves overflowed into the hall and up 
into the small attic. The public office with two desks, two occu- 
pants, iron safe, and filing cabinets continued to occupy a room 
seven feet by eleven, intended originally as a private research 
room for one person. 
In fact, by May, 1915, a year and a half after the first section 
was occupied, over three years after it was begun, and five years, 
lacking one month, after the first director entered upon his duties, 
the situation had become impossible. The Garden could make 
