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examiner for merit badges for the Brooklyn Council of the Boy 
Scout Foundation of Greater New York. 
The annual meeting of the “alumni” (now numbering well 
over 1,000) of our outdoor courses on trees, shrubs, and herbs 
was held on Saturday afternoon, January 4, in the Laboratory 
Building. Mr. Rutherford Platt of the Platt-Forbes Co. of 
New York City, and one of our former students, gave another of 
his delightful, informal talks, illustrated with some of his new 
color photographs and enlargements. 
Mr. Platt is an occasional 
contributor of colored photographs of plant material and articles 
thereon to Life magazine. He declares that the courses he has 
taken at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden are the source of his 
inspiration. 
T devoted the period June 15 to August 1 and also severa 
week-ends to breeding work with chestnut species and hybrids 
at Hamden, Conn. From June 15 to July 14 Miss Rusk assisted 
me in this work. A brief resume of the results will be found on 
pages 94-99, 
— 
Respectfully submitted, 
ARTHUR HARMOUNT GRAVES, 
Curator of Public Instruction. 
REPORT OF THE CURATOR OF ELEMENTARY 
INSTRUCTION FOR 1941 
To THe DIRECTOR: 
I hereby present my annual report for the Department of 
Elementary Instruction for 1941, 
It might be of interest to review rather explicitly the year’s 
work which ends a long period of progressive upbuilding. It has 
been a banner year in certain ways. The attendance in visiting 
classes and at children’s lectures was considerably larger than 
last year, and perhaps our most outstanding achievement is 
that of passing the million mark in the distribution of packets of 
sced to children. Almost a million and a quarter packets were 
filled during the year, nearly half of that number being filled by 
the children of our own garden classes. More than 1,055,000 
were distributed to schools. 
