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program aimed to include studies that would yield results of more 
than mere academic interest—results that were fundamental to 
the solution of problems in applied botany. 
Certainly no line of work could be more logical for an urban 
institution. The City has square miles of area in parks and water- 
sheds planted with trees and shrubs and laid out as lawns or grass- 
land. For all of its food the City is dependent upon agriculture 
and should (in its own interest, if through no higher motive) 
contribute whatever it can to make agriculture and horticulture 
more efficient. The breeding of a new food plant, or. the dis- 
covery of how to control a plant disease destructive of crops, oper- 
ates in a very direct manner to reduce the cost of food to the con- 
sumer in the city—not to speak of the high value of advancing 
knowledge for its own sake. 
The Seventh Annual Report of the Botanic Garden (for 1917) 
contained the following statement: 
“Fundamental to all else is research. The greatest need of 
botany, the greatest need of the people from botany, is a deeper 
and wider knowledge of the principles of plant life and their 
practical application in agriculture, horticulture, floriculture, for- 
estry, plant pathology, and other applied sciences. The judicial 
expenditure of very large sums for botanical research can be justi- 
fied, not only from the scientific, but also from the financial point 
of view. .. . No error could be more disastrous than an attempt 
to build here a superstructure of public education concerning 
plants, without a suitable foundation in botanical research.” 
In our Fighth Annual Report the matter was again emphasized 
with the statement that, 
“Nothing is now more important for us than to bend every 
effort to realize our plans, which include the increase as well as 
the diffusion of a knowledge of plant life. ... I feel that the 
Brooklyn Botanic Garden is now at a critical stage of its develop- 
ment with reference to this particular work. Steps should be 
taken as soon as possible for the establishment of several research 
curatorships, with the necessary assistants and equipment, and 
provisions for publishing the results of research.” 
Again, in the Ninth Annual Report (for 1919), the subject was 
stressed, with special reference to the need of pure science re- 
