2 
such an institution in Brooklyn, and showing the extensive civic 
as well as educational and scientific work of the Garden. The 
need for additional funds was also set forth. Here, again, the 
sympathetic response of the representatives of the local press was 
most encouraging, 
The Citizens Committee opened a special office at 16 Clinton 
Street, and the canvass for subscriptions was directed from this 
office with a special office force. So generous was the response 
that the quarter of a million dollars required to be subscribed and 
paid on or before December 31, 1926, was over-subscribed by 
July 8 and Mr. Rockefeller was so notified. 
The letters exchanged between the treasurer of the committee 
and Mr. Rockefeller’s office are here given, and in order to.make 
the account complete, the letter containing Mr. Rockefeller’s 
original pledge is repeated from my preceding annual report. 
May 25, 1925. 
Dear Mr. Gager: 
Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., for whom I am writing, has asked 
me to pledge on his behalf toward the endowment funds of the 
Brooklyn Botanic Garden the sum of $250,000 on condition that 
an equal sum is obtained in cash from other sources before Dec. 
31, 1926, both sums to be applied toward endowment, unrestricted 
as to use. 
While Mr. Rockefeller asks that the money which he thus con- 
tributes be added to the endowment funds, he realizes the un- 
wisdom of seeking to forecast the requirements of the distant 
future, and is fully conscious of the danger attendant upon the 
establishment of any endowment fund in perpetuity. It will, 
therefore, be entirely agreeable to him to have the whole or any 
portion of the principal of this gift used, at any time after the 
expiration of twenty-five years from date, for any of the cor- 
porate purposes of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, provided that 
such use is duly authorized by a four-fifths vote of its trustees. 
Yours truly, 
(Signed) Raymonp B. Fosprcx 
Mr. C. Stuart Gager, 
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 
Brooklyn, New York. 
