47 
Smoke Nuisance 
The pollution of the atmosphere above and surrounding the 
Garden by soot and fumes from the burning of oil and soft coal 
has been greatly aggravated by the increase of apartments and 
factories (especially south and east of the Garden), and by the 
increase in the use of these fuels on account of the strike in the 
anthracite coal fields. Prospect Park, west of the Garden, is 
suffering in a similar way. Soot now settles on the roof of our 
conservatories to such an extent as to reduce the intensity of light 
inside the houses below the optimum required for plants. Vege- 
tation is coated with a layer of soot which cloggs the stomata or 
pores of the foliage and young branches, thus interfering with 
the normal life-processes. This is specially disastrous to ever- 
greens. It seems folly for a city to spend money for the mainte- 
nance of beautiful parks, and then permit such municipal develop- 
ment (factories, etc.) in the vicinity of the park as largely to 
undo the work of the Park Department, including the killing, 
by the hundreds, of trees that have taken—some of them—as 
long as fifty years or more to develop. 
Numerous botanic gardens in large cities, in this and other 
countries, have, during the past few years, been obliged to 
relocate outside of the city on account of conditions such as we 
here call attention to. For the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to 
move out of the City would spell disaster to a large and important 
division of our work—our service to the schools and the local 
public; and yet, if existing conditions continue, we shall face the 
alternative of doing that, or of giving up all attempts to grow 
evergreen trees and other kinds of plants that cannot withstand 
the sulphur dioxide fumes and the soot from burning oil and 
soft coal. 
International Seed Exchange 
Over 3,200 packets of seeds were sent to foreign gardens during 
1925, and over 1,200 packets were received in exchange. 
Our List of Seeds Offered in Exchange (published in December) 
was restricted this year, for the first time, to seeds of woody 
plants (trees and shrubs), with the intention of including in the 
1926 collections seeds of only herbaceous plants. 
Our correspondence with foreign and a few domestic insti- 
