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tion was received from Mr. Alfred ‘I’. White, stating that several 
friends of the Institute had authorized him to offer to the In- 
stitute the sum of $25,000, to be used in equipping a scientific 
botanic garden, whose primary purpose should be the teaching 
of botany to students in the public and private schools of the 
city, and to the general public, provided such a garden be es- 
tablished on the grounds adjacent to the Museum. ‘The com- 
munication was accompanied by a check for $1,000, to be used 
as far as necessary in obtaining information and_ preliminary 
plans for the establishment of the proposed garden. On Decem- 
ber 28, 1906, this offer of $25,000 was changed to a subscrip- 
tion of $50,000, made under the same conditions. 
By the authority of the Board of Trustees, a special commit- 
tee on plan and scope of a botanic garden was appointed, as 
follows: Charles A. Schieren, Lowell M. Palmer, Alfred T 
White, Franklin W. Hooper, Henry E. Chapin, Frederic A. 
Lucas, George C. Brackett, William H. Maxwell, Nathaniel L. 
Britton, James Dean, and Abel J. Grout. This committee held 
a meeting on June 27, 1905, when arrangements were made 
for securing information with regard to existing botanic 
gardens. 
During the educational year of 1905-06 this committee 
gathered information with regard to botanic gardens in this 
country and abroad, and prepared a bill to be introduced in the 
State Legislature, the purpose of which was to amend Chapter 
509 of the Laws of 1897, above referred to. This bill provided 
that “Whenever the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 
incorporated by chapter one hundred and seventy-two of the 
laws of eighteen hundred and ninety, shall have raised or 
secured by private subscription the sum of fifty thousand dollars 
within one year from the passage of this act, the principal of 
which or the income thereof to be set apart and used by the 
said Institute for the purchase of plants, flowers, shrubs and 
trees, to be set out in said Botanic Garden and Arboretum,” 
the City of New York was authorized to enter into an agree- 
ment with The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences “for the 
establishing and maintaining by said Institute of a Botanic 
Garden and Arboretum,” on lands previously designated; and 
