e) 
~~) 
which the controlling conditions, here as elsewhere, are the size 
of the staff, laboratory and greenhouse accommodations, and the 
adopted plan of working intensively with small groups of fifty or 
less in preference to large audiences of many hundreds. In the 
second place, the figures do not reflect the intangible results of 
awakened interest, encouraged enthusiasms, character building, 
and in many cases the revelation to boys and girls of the vocation 
they prefer to follow. 
THE LIBRARY 
‘Plants without books are useless.”’ So wrote Sir William 
Hooker, the first director of Kew, to his famous son, Sir Joseph 
Hooker, the second director. This reminds one, by contrast, 
of the famous apothegm of Louis Agassiz—‘‘Study nature, not 
books.” The latter saying, of course, contains an element of 
sound advice; it places the emphasis in the right place. If it had 
7 
been qualified or expanded it would have lost much of its edu- 
cational force. Indeed Agassiz’s advice is the procedure that 
must be followed in the very infancy of a science. When Pasteur 
discovered bacteria there were no existing books or journals on 
“bacteriology.” There was no such thing as bacteriology. One 
had to study bacteria, not books. But, as a science develops, a 
related literature gradually arises and expands. It then becomes 
necessary for investigators, as well as other students, to become 
familiar with the existing body of knowledge and methods of 
procedure. To paraphrase Hooker, books (and periodical 
literature) then become as essential as plants. The library of a 
scientific institution, therefore, serves a double constituency 
those who wish merely to become informed as to the nature and 
results of the science as a matter of general information and 
culture, and those who plan to explore the field beyond the 
frontiers of what is already known. 
The Library of the Botanic Garden is open free, daily, and its 
use by the general public is encouraged and steadily increases. 
The number of users now averages more than 350 a month. 
During the vacation months of July and August, with unusually 
hot and humid weather the number of users was 445 (July, 219; 
August, 226). As it becomes gradually enriched it becomes a 
more efficient adjunct of research, not only for our own staff and 
