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nor Hill on April 28, 1891. This established a corporation known 

 as "The New York Botanical Garden" 



"for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a botanical garden 

 and museum and arboretum therein, for the collection and culture 

 of plants, flowers, shrubs, and trees, the advancement of botanical 

 science and knowledge, and the prosecution of original researches 

 therein and in kindred subjects, for affording instruction in the 

 same, for the prosecution and exhibition of ornamental and decora- 

 tive horticulture and gardening, and for the entertainment, rec- 

 reation, and instruction of the people." 



The list of incorporators included forty-eight names of New 

 Yorkers of distinction. Besides the botanists Addison Brown and 

 Nathaniel L. Britton, there were such well-known names as Seth 

 Low, Charles A. Dana, Henry C. Potter, Cornelius Vanderbilt, 

 Morris K. Jesup, J. Pierpont Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, D. O. 

 Mills, William C. Schermerhorn, John S. Kennedy, David Lydig, 

 Samuel Sloan, and William E. Dodge. The Act of Incorporation 

 authorized and directed the Park Commissioners to set aside for 

 the proposed Garden not exceeding 250 acres in Bronx Park or 

 some other public park north of the Harlem River, if, within seven 

 years, the corporation should secure by subscription not less than 

 $250,000 "for successfully establishing and prosecuting the objects 

 aforesaid." The first subscription, of $25,000, was made by Judge 

 Addison Brown, and was followed by a subscription of an equal 

 amount by Columbia College. 3 By June 18, 1895, the required 

 $250,000 had been raised by subscription, the Commissioners of 

 Public Parks were asked to set aside 250 acres of land in Bronx 

 Park, and the Board of Estimate was requested to appropriate 

 $500,000 for the erection of suitable buildings, as had been made 

 mandatory by the act of the state legislature. A Board of Managers 

 had already been elected, with Cornelius Vanderbilt, President ; 

 Andrew Carnegie, Vice-president ; J. Pierpont Morgan, Treasurer ; 

 and N. L. Britton, Secretary. Seth Low, President of Columbia 

 University, accepted the chairmanship of the Scientific Directors. 



3 Columbia, aside from her broad interests in education and research, had 

 a sentimental interest in botanic gardens from the fact that the twenty acres 

 occupied by the Elgin Botanic Garden of Dr. David Hosack — the present site 

 of the Rockefeller Center — was donated to Columbia College by the State of 

 New York in 1814 and has long constituted one of the chief sources of reve- 

 nue of Columbia College and the subsequent Columbia University. 



