100 
Mills, Alfred Large, J. E. Rauch, H. A. Graef, and their asso- 
ciates, and such other persons as shall become members of said 
society, shall be and are hereby declared and constituted a body 
politic and corporate by the name or title of the “Brooklyn Hunt 
Botanical and Horticultural Garden of the county of Kings.” 
2. The business and objects of said corporation shall be to im- 
prove and encourage horticulture, establish and maintain botan- 
ical, ornamental and experimental gardens, and otherwise to pro- 
mote and extend the knowledge of horticulture, botany, and land- 
scape gardening. 
3. The gardens and buildings of said corporation shall be lo- 
cated in said county of Kings, and the said corporation may hold, 
purchase and convey real and personal estate for the purposes 
aforesaid. 
4. The said corporation, its affairs and property shall be man- 
aged by such number of trustees, and in such manner as the mem- 
bers of said society shall, from time to time, by their constitu- 
tion or by-laws direct, and until such’ trustees shall be elected, 
the persons named in the first section of this act shall be the 
trustees thereof. 
s. This act shall take effect immediately. 
Laws of New York, 78th Session, 1855 
Chap. 224, p. 332. 


The incorporators of this garden certainly could not be accused 
of acting ina dilatory manner, for on the evening of the second day 
after the passage of the above act, a meeting was held under the 
auspices of the Brooklyn Horticultural Society, at which there 
was delivered, by the Rev. Dr. Francis Vinton, an address in- 
augurating the garden. The title page of this address, as printed, 
reads as follows :* 
~ Address | at the | Inauguration | of the | Hunt Botanical Gar- 
den, | in| Brooklyn, N. Y., | delivered in the Athenaeum, | at the | 
* The printed copy of this address was first brought to the writer’s 
attention by Mr. H. V. Letkemann, of Brooklyn, in 1911. This copy was 
secured from Mr. Letkemann and presented to the Botanic Garden library 
by Mr. Alfred T, White, on January 17, 1916. Careful search had previ- 
ously failed to locate a second copy, though a second copy has since been 
obtained. 
