ae 
sistants, to provide for a more efficient administration of our col- 
lections for educational ends, and for scientific investigation and 
the work of public instruction. 
The normal, rapid expansion of our work during the past few 
years, and the steadily increasing demands for public service are 
the most convincing evidence of our need for a larger personnel 
and income. 
There are indications that we have seen the worst of the world- 
wide economic depression, and we should be ready with plans to 
take prompt and full advantage of every opportunity that will arise 
during the progress of recovery, looking toward an ever-widening 
and more efficient public service. 
) 
VELATIONS 
PUBLIC 
Attendance —‘ Is this a bread line?’’, a gentleman asked. He 
was referring to the double queue (two abreast) extending one 
ay for about 25 feet out onto the sidewalk 
Sunday morning in \ 
from the entrance turnstile of the Richard Young Gate. “ No,” 
was the reply, “these people have come to enjoy the plantations 
of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.” The double line continued for 
fully two hours, new arrivals taking their place at the end as fast 
as those in front could pass through the turnstile. There was a 
similar queue at the north Washington Avenue gate. The total 
ay was nearly 30,000. Similar queues formed 
jar 
attendance that Sunc 
on several pleasant Sundays in the spring and fall. 
The total attendance for 1933 was 1,315,847 as compared to 
1,307,964 in 1932 and 1,107,039 in 1931. 
Mere Figures Not [nteresting.—But the Botanic Garden is not 
interested in crowds per sc. What we are interested in is to have 
Is 
the Garden used for the purposes for which it was established, 
namely, to stimulate and to gratify an interest in plant life—to 
promote public education in all aspects of botany and horticulture. 
The plantations are intended to serve as an outdoor museum; their 
use as a playground (for children or adults), and their use merely 
as a public park, tends to defeat their use as a botanic garden and 
is not encouraged. A park of several hundred acres, intended 
primarily for recreation, is available just across the street from the 
3otanic Garden, so that there is no necessity or excuse for the use 
