101 
THE ECONOMIC GARDEN 
The radical changes in grade in the Garden, necessitated in 
realizing the plan of the landscape architects, has made it neces- 
sary to postpone the installation of most of the herbaceous 
sections, including the systematic, until 1913, and to make only 
temporary installation of the morphologic and economic sections. 
It was decided to start the economic section early, not only be- 
cause the plants in this section could be cared for with com- 
parative ease without greenhouse facilities, but also because of 
the popular nature of this kind of an exhibit in a large city like 
Greater New York. 
It would indeed seem absurd in a village or small city to 
offer the public as an educational exhibit, specimens of corn, 
tomatoes, pumpkins, and cabbages, but in a city the size of 
Greater New York there are innumerable children and young 
people who have never seen the plants that produce the common 
garden vegetables—who have never seen strawberries, for ex- 
ample, except in a box at the grocers, or beans and peas growing 
on the plants that produce them. Under such circumstances, an 
economic garden, containing not only some of the more unusual 
economic plants, but also the commonest garden vegetables, is 
of real educational value, and as our experience of two seasons 
demonstrates, of considerable popular interest. 
Our economic garden has been temporarily placed in the 
northwest portion of the grounds, just south of the local flora 
section. Twenty beds have been planted in four rows. ‘Those 
in the first two rows contain food and fodder plants and con- 
diments, those in the third row, medicinal plants, and those 
in the fourth row, fiber plants. Figure 14 shows this section 
as it appeared in the summer of I911. The appearance was 
substantially the same in 1912. ‘The blanket label shown in the 
illustration is a temporary one. 
Among the plants exhibited and seldom seen growing in this 
region, especially by inhabitants of the city, may be mentioned 
hemp, flax, cotton, peanut, rye and wheat. It is the intention 
ultimately to grow, by the side of each cultivated plant, the wild 
plant from which it was derived, whenever this is known, or 
else the nearest related wild plant. Labels will indicate the 
