36 
Special Exhibitions 
Award of Gold Medal.—The Garden sent an educational exhibit 
of ferns to the “ Grand Exhibition of Tropical Ferns and Orchids,” 
held in Horticultural Hall, Boston, September 22-25, 1921, by the 
Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Our exhibit included 66 
different varieties of the Boston fern (including several varieties 
which have originated at the Garden), and 42 different kinds of 
ferns not in the Boston fern group. These included 25 genera 
and 9 families, ranging from the small floating mosquito fern 
(Azolla) to large tropical land ferns. The total of 108 different 
forms gave the Garden third place in the number of kinds shown. 
Of this total 58 varieties were not shown by any other exhibitor. 
The Garden’s exhibit was not entered in a competitive class, but 
was sent as an educational exhibit only. The officers of the Horti- 
cultural Society expressed their appreciation of the broad-minded 
policy of the Garden in sending so extensive an exhibit to another 
city and even to another state, and awarded the Garden a special 
Gold Medal for the extent and excellence of its exhibit. 
Exhibit of Plant Immigrants and Natives—An exhibit of plant 
immigrants and natives, including both economic plants and wild 
flowers and trees, was held in the Laboratory Building, October 
15-28, in cooperation with “America’s Making,” a festival and 
exhibit held during the latter part of October throughout Greater 
New York, under the auspices of the New York State and City 
departments of education. The attendance the first Sunday (Oc- 
tober 23) was, in four hours, over 1,500, and it was in considera- 
tion of this fact that the exhibit was continued through the follow- 
ing Sunday. The total attendance was over 5,600. At the close 
of the exhibit at the Garden it was sent, by request, to Bay Ridge 
High School (Brooklyn), where it was installed for several days 
by the department of biology of that school. 
Library 
The outstanding facts about the library are the unusual increase 
in the number of publications received and the steadily increasing 
number of readers. The number of readers has nearly doubled 
since 1918 and is nearly three times what it was in 1916, the last 
