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usefulness may not always be at once apparent,” and thus if the 
results of research at the Botanic Garden have not always shown 
immediate practical applications, they were none the less com- 
mended by the Director. On the other hand, he was also of the 
opinion that the “practical ends of plant breeding, crop production, 
and disease control” should not “be minimized,” and thus he always 
appreciated scientific observations and discoveries which had im- 
mediate practical applications. It was his wish that the results of 
research at the Garden would constitute a service to the public; 
“The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is the daily beneficiary of research 
done elsewhere; it is highly fitting that we should also be making 
contributions to our knowledge of plant life as a service not to the 
_— 
few, but to the general public.” 
All of the members of the staff were afforded the opportunity 
to carry on investigations in phases of botany and horticulture in 
which they were interested, insofar as their administrative and 
teaching duties permitted. The members of two Departments— 
Plant Breeding, established in 1913, and Pathology, in 1921— 
devoted practically all of their time to research. The results ob- 
tained have been published as four Memoirs of the Botanic Garden, 
and ninety-nine Contributions, the latter being papers first pub- 
lished in botanical journals and issued as reprints. A few of the 
Contributions were of a general or educational nature, but by far 
the larger number were accounts of intensive studies on specific 
botanical problems. 
Because of the demands of administrative duties, Dr. Gager 
personally found but little time to carry on investigation. How- 
ever, he continued his interest in the influence of radium rays on 
plant life and, in cooperation with Dr. A. F. Blakeslee, published 
a paper in 1927 on their experiments, in which ovaries of Jimson 
Weed were treated with radium emanations to induce mutations. 
The treatments were successful, and several mutant types, never 
before observed, were obtained. Two other papers, one published 
in 1916 and the other in 1936, reviewed the studies on the prob- 
lem of the effect of radium rays on plant life. 
During his first summer at the Botanic Garden, Dr. Gager 
accompanied Dr. N. L. Britton, Director-in-Chief of the New York 
Botanical Garden, and Mrs. Britton, on a trip to Western Cuba 
anny 
