NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT 



OF TlIIv 



BROOKLYN liOTANlC GARDEN 



1929 ^ 



REPORT OF 11-11', DTRF.CTOR 



To THE Botanic Gardkn (iovERNiNO Co]\r^i ittf.e : 



I have the honor to present herewith the nineteenth annual 

 re])ort of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, covering the 3'ear 1929. 



What a Botanic Garden is Not 



In his book, L'art dcs jardins (Chapter seven), M. Edonarcl 

 Andre, a French landscape architect, gives a classification of 

 public parks and gardens. Dividing- public gardens into Pleasure 

 Gardens and Utility Gardens, he ])laces botanic gardens in the 

 latter class. We do not imagine, for a moment, that M. Andre 

 overlooks tbe fact tbat pleasure is useful and even essential to 

 healthy living ; but what strikes one is that he clearly recognizes 

 the utility or usefulness of botanic gardens, though excluding 

 them from the class of gardens developed and maintained ])ri- 

 marily for pleasure or recreation." 



One might think that this matter would no longer need to be 

 explained. In some quarters, to be sin-e, it does not; but just 

 what a botanic garden is, and in wbat ways it serves human needs 

 — individual, educational, recreational, civic — is still not a matter 

 of universal understanding. Botanic garden administrators still 



1 Brooklyn BoTA^MC Gakdex Recokd, Vol. XIX, No. 2. March, 1929. 



2 M. Andre, of course, is here using the term botanic garden in its 

 narrow sense as referring to a garden or park area planted in accordance 

 with botanical considerations. In the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Record 

 for May, 1929, the broader conception of a botanic garden as a scientic 

 and educational institution was elaborated. 



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