TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT 
OF THE 
BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN 
1932> 
To Tue Boranic GARDEN GOVERNING COMMITTEE: 
I have the honor to present herewith the twenty-second annual 
report of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, covering the year 1932. 
A traveler motoring through the American desert soon comes 
upon a sign reading as follows: “ Dip: 300 feet.” With unfeigned 
apprehension he grasps the hand strap and prepares for the perilous 
descent, only to discover that his car glides gradually down and 
smoothly up again. The “dip” was only 300 feet ahead, not 
300 feet deep as he had feared. After several such experiences 
he begins to wonder what has caused these “dips.” He soon 
discovers, or is told, that they are stream courses, full of water 
only at intervals. If the stream flowed without interruption a 
bridge would be built over the stream-course and the traveler 
would continue his progress at a uniform level. But periodically 
the stream dries up, leaving a depression, into which and through 
which the traveler must go if he would continue to progress. Ie 
soon learns that all these depressions are not parallel to his course, 
but at right angles to it, and that he always comes safely out again. 
So it seems to be in the history of an institution. It moves for- 
ward with the rest of the world until the warning sign appears 
and then, like everything else dependent on finance, it moves in- 
evitably toward and into the depression. The stream of financial 
support has partly if not wholly dried up. This, alas, seems to 
be the history—the normal method of progress—of most financial 
and financed institutions. 
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, for example, was established (in 
1BrooktyN Boranic GArpDEN Recorp, Vol. XXII, No. 2, March, 1932. 
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