26 
repeat the itemized summary of these needs from the preceding 
annual report. The statement will be found on page iii of this 
report. 
Is Not Botanical Research Already Amply Provided For? 
The question is sometimes raised as to whether botanical 
research is not already amply provided for by the work of the 
United States Department of Agriculture and the various State 
Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations. As Professor L. 
H. Bailey has so effectively stated (see page two of the second 
fly-leaf preceding this report), the asking of such a question is 
an unconscious revelation of an inadequate conception of the 
vast expanse of the unknown. Lord Bacon’s classic statement, 
that he had only gathered a few pebbles from the shore of the 
ocean of knowledge, is as true today as it was in Bacon’s time 
of the great discrepancy between what is known and what it is 
possible and essential to know. 
The problems of botanical science (as of all sciences) are so 
numerous and so vast, from the standpoint of both pure and 
applied science, that there is little or no danger of duplicating 
work or of exhausting the problems, however much the agencies 
of botanical research may be multiplied. 
With a recorded history of the study of plants in all civilized 
countries extending from the time of Aristotle to the present, 
there are more problems and more important problems pressing 
for solution today than ever before, 
Importance of Botanical Research 
As to the importance of research, in botany or any other 
branch of science, the time has passed for presenting arguments. 
Every intelligent person understands that most of the material 
comforts and necessities of today, and the intellectual and 
spiritual enrichment of our modern life are due, in large part, to 
research in pure science. The scientific work of the Brooklyn 
Botanic Garden is foundational for all else that it does. We 
can make no more important contribution to modern culture, 
nor to the practical needs of the modern world, than to prosecute 
a vigorous program of botanical research. 
