24 
a report on parks and recreation centers given or bequeathed to 
American cities by individuals. The total area of these various 
gifts is 75,000 acres, valued at more than $100,000,000. The fol- 
lowing cities report that every acre of their existing parks was 
secured by private gift: New Brunswick, New Jersey; Oneonta, 
New York; Raleigh, North Carolina. The same is true of the 
two parks of Norwich, N. Y. In Pittsburgh, Pa., Frick Park, 
of 150 acres, was willed to the city by Mr. Henry C. Frick, to- 
gether with a fund of $2,000,000 as an endowment for mainten- 
ance. The gift of Look Memorial Park to Northampton, Mass., 
was accompanied by a fund of $450,000 for development and 
maintenance. The gift of Kirby Park to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was 
accompanied by two gifts totaling $370,000 for development and 
$500,000 as an endowment fund. Other instances might be cited 
of the generous provision of private funds for such a purpose. 
Although the grounds of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden were 
provided by the City, the Garden, during its twenty-two years of 
existence, has received from individuals one gift of $250,000, one 
of $50,000, and one bequest of $243,149, not to mention numerous 
sinaller gifts and bequests. The Citizens Endowment Fund of 
$253,929 was contributed in 1926 by about 640 subscribers. But 
the cost of maintaining a Botanic Garden of given area is greatly 
in excess of the cost of maintaining a park of the same area, 
— 
because the grounds are much more intensively developed, the 
trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants are more rare and expensive 
than those of an ordinary park, the collections must be labeled 
and must be in charge of experts, and a program of. scientific 
study and public education based upon the collections must be 
supported, In several ways the cost of maintaining a botanic 
garden in such a large city as Brooklyn is greater than it would 
be ina smaller city. 
The gifts above recorded, together with the generous support 
already received from the people of Brooklyn and. the greatly 
increasing use of all facilities of the Botanic Garden by our resi- 
dents, encourage the director to hope that the much needed addi- 
tional gifts and unrestricted endowment will be realized in the not 
distant future. 
