15 



may serve incidentally some of the purposes of a ])ark. it is not 

 planned nor administered with that object in view, but with the 

 aim of stimulating- and fostering a knowledge and love of plant 

 life on the jiart of the public. Everything that does not con- 

 tribute to this end tends to defeat its purpose as a botanic garden. 

 It is really sur])rising how often it is necessary to explain this 

 fact to visitors and to correspondents who suggest uses of the 

 grounds, like those mentioned a1)0ve, wholh' foreign to the pur- 

 poses of a botanic garden. 



We realize, of course, that thousands of the more than one 

 million persons who visit the Garden annually come to enjoy the 

 place merely as they would a park ; such persons are more than 

 welcome. The Garden is g-lad to serve the community in every 

 way that does not interfere with its main purpose of botanical 

 education ; but apparently it is still a perennial necessity to em- 

 l^hasize the fact that a botanic garden is not jncrcly a park, and 

 that the use of its grounds in that way must always remain sec- 

 ondary to its main purpose as an outdoors museum of plant life. 



Important Gifts 



Among tlie larger gifts for 1929 may be mentioned the fol- 

 lowing : 



I. Woven wood fence to enclose the Japanese Gavdcn. Per- 

 haps 110 more urgent need has been met than this. No j^art of 

 the Botanic Garden has suffered more than the Japanese Garden 

 by the tendency of certain elements of the public to use it as a 

 picnic- or play-ground. A Japanese Garden is, above all things, 

 intended to be a place of quiet, where one would go, as to an 

 art gallery, to enjoy the beauty of the place, or to a temple or 

 shrine for meditation and cjuiet. This jnu-pose, of course, is 

 completely defeated if the Garden is dominated by boys ])layiug 

 tag or by adults behaving in ecjually unseemly manner, 'fhe only 

 way to prevent this is by being able to control entrance to the 

 Japanese Garden apart from entrance to the Botanic Garden as 

 a whole, and by having the Garden open only when it is possible 

 to have it properly su])ervised by guards. This has been made 

 possible by the new fence, to the gratification of the majority of 

 our visitors and the relief and satisfaction of the administration. 



