114 
pleted in December, 1913. ‘The architects of the building are 
Messrs. McKim, Mead & White. The general contractors for 
the completion of this building and the remainder of the plant- 
houses are Frymier & Hanna. The entire cost of the completed 
instruction building and the four planthouses, palmhouse and 
one propagating house, including the work already done and the 
work remaining to complete, will not be very far from $270,000. 
From the demands already made upon the staff of instructors by 
the teachers and children, especially those of the public schools 
of Brooklyn, it seems probable that the entire building will be oc- 
cupied and taxed to the limit of its capacity as soon as completed. 
That this crowning success may be confidently expected is due in 
largest measure to the untiring efforts of Dr. C. Stuart Gager, the 
director of the Garden since its beginning, and to the exception- 
ally efficient staff which he has gathered around him, among whom 
I should like to mention especially Mr. Norman Taylor, curator 
of plants, Dr. Edgar W. Olive, curator of public instruction, Dr. 
O. E. White, curator of plant breeding, Miss Ellen Eddy Shaw, 
curator of elementary instruction, Miss Bertha M. Eves, secre- 
tary, and Dr. Laura E. Watson Benedict, librarian. 
Remarks of Director Gager 
The idea of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden was first proposed 
by the late director of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 
Professor Franklin W. Hooper, who was instrumental in secur- 
ing the passage of the necessary law by the State Legislature, at 
Albany, in 1897, authorizing the city, under the direction of its 
park commissioner, to establish the Garden. ‘ 
The suggestion that the Garden should be administered by the 
Institute, as an integral part of its organization, was made nearly 
ten years later by the present chairman of the Governing Com- 
mittee of the Garden, who was not aware of the legislation al- 
ready enacted. 
Having been the parent of the Garden, as now organized, 
Mr. White has assumed all the responsibility and cares of a 
* The bill was introduced into the Legislature by the Hon. George W. 
Brush, M.D., member of the board of trustees of the Brooklyn Institute 
of Arts and Sciences. 
