28 
thirty-five years of publication—all these combine with Dr. 
Svenson’s fern research and my own, to carry the Garden’s 
contributions to fern study widespread. 
I have taken an active part during the past summer in the 
establishment of an up-State work-study summer session for 
Brooklyn College students at the N. Y. Agricultural and Tech- 
nical Institute at Morrisville, N.Y. One hundred and fifty city 
students who had volunteered for service on the food production 
front, were quartered in the dormitories of the Morrisville Insti- 
tute. There they also met daily with a regular Brooklyn College 
staff of teachers, taking and completing a series of regular college 
courses most of which were specially correlated with the rural 
environment. From the Institute as headquarters they went 
forth daily to pick peas and beans for market and canning factory 
use. Their total production for the summer was 22,000 bushels 
of these essential foods. This project, which it is hoped may be 
an exemplar for an expanded and continued city-country educa- 
tional program, has had the enthusiastic support of state, and 
federal, as well as citv educational agencies. 
Respectfully submitted, 
RALPH C, BENEDICT, 
Resident Investigator (Ferns). 
REPORT OF THE RESIDENT INVESTIGATOR 
(ECONOMIC PLANTS) FOR 1943 
To THE ACTING DIRECTOR: 
| herewith submit a report for the year 1943. With the consent 
of the Garden, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden—Long Island Uni- 
versity Course dealing with Economic Botany was omitted during 
the academic vear 1942-1943. Several student groups from Long 
Island University were instructed in the taxonomy of medicinal 
and other economic plants, by use of the Botanic Garden Con- 
servatories and Grounds. 
During the summer of 1943, a survey dealing with the avail- 
ability of drug plants in approximately 2,000 nurseries in the 
States of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massa- 
