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We appreciate the compliment to the professional standing 
and high purposes of the director and staff of this Garden, which 
the presence here of these scientists conveys. 
The trustees, the committee, and the staff of the Garden 
all welcome the opportunity which the completion of this build- 
ing opens for a still broader service to the people of our city, and 
especially to the teachers and pupils of our public schools, whose 
demands for instruction by the Garden staff have multiplied far 
more rapidly than even the most enthusiastic of us had dared to 
expect. 
Many of our citizens have watched with close interest the 
development of the Garden grounds during the last five years 
from a useless and unfrequented area into a most attractive place 
of recreation, which has added more than fifty acres to the 
pleasure grounds of the city and was visited last year by more 
than 360,000 people. Few, however, have realized the work 
which has been done within the very limited portion of the build- 
ing completed three years ago, or have known anything of the 
eagerness with which great numbers of teachers and children and 
others have seized every opportunity which the inadequate rooms 
offered. Last year alone there were 2,600 registered pupils in 
classes with an aggregate attendance of 29,000, beside outside 
lectures by the staff in the public schools to over 18,000 more. 
Such was the demand for seeds from the school children for 
planting home and school gardens that 110,000 packets were put 
up and furnished them at one cent per packet. 
The cultivation of farm gardens in backyards and vacant lots, 
which is now attracting universal attention, was initiated by the 
Garden in Brooklyn three years ago, and has progressed steadily 
and satisfactorily year by year, so that fortunately we are now 
in a position to offer to the city the services of a trained and 
fully competent staff to supervise the preparation, planting, and 
maintenance of such gardens if funds become available for the 
engagement of suitable assistants to work under the direction of 
the staff. The salary of one such assistant has already been 
offered as a free gift. It is perhaps well to state frankly that, 
without proper instruction and supervision, farm gardens are 
likely to have disappointing results, 
