164 
Association of America, and the Royal New Zealand Institute of 
Horticulture. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society made him 
an honorary life member in 1934. In 1920, the honorary degree 
of Doctor of Science was conferred on him by Syracuse Univer- 
sity, from which he had graduated twenty-five years before. In 
1921, the honorary degree of Doctor of Pedagogy was conferred 
by the New York State College for Teachers. 
An honor which Dr. Gager greatly appreciated was the Arthur 
Hoyt Seott Garden and Horticultural Award of a gold medal and 
cash for outstanding achievement in the field of horticulture and 
botany, in 1941, 

On the twelfth day of June, 1943, Dr. Gager was at the Brooklyn 
Botanic Garden for the last time. In July, 1910, when he first saw 
the original area of forty acres, then known as Institute Park, sub- 
ungton 
— 
stantial border mounds had been constructed along Was 
and Flatbush Avenues and planted with miscellaneous trees and 
shrubs. The land had been graded to provide a diversified topog- 
raphy, with a lake and hills, and walks had been laid out. “Such 

— 
was our inheritance,” he wrote. 
In contrast, a third of a century later, the Botanic Garden was 
well established. The grounds were planted with many herbs, 
shrubs, and trees, arranged in a manner to show their relationship. 
Many special features had been provided—the Japanese Garden, 
the Rose Garden, the Local Flora, flowering cherries and crab 
apples, daffodils, waterlilies, the Children’s Gardens, and “my 
brook,” running through the grounds from the lake. The Lab- 
oratory Building, with its classrooms, laboratories, library, and 
administrative offices, provided visible evidence of the accomplish- 
ment in the realm of education and research. The Garden had a 
host of friends whose interest and material support made possible 
the realization of Dr. Gager’s vision of a world-renowned institu- 
tion of botanical teaching and research, placed in a setting of great 
beauty. He might well have said “This is our bequest.” 
If, in reviewing this record of accomplishments at the Brooklyn 
Botanic Garden, we have also kept in mind, as Dr. Gager admon- 
ished us to do in making a review of past accomplishments, that 
