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LIV.—A NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDEN FOR 
SOUTH AFRICA. 
Professor H. H. W. Pearson, Professor of Botany in the South 
African College, Cape Town, has advocated the need for the 
establishment of a South African National Botanic Garden in his 
address as President of Section C. of the South African Association 
for the Advancement of Science. 
The meeting of the Association synchronising as it does with the 
consummation of the Union of South Africa renders the consider- 
ation of this question particularly opportune, and there is hardly 
room for doubt that the able and well-reasoned statements advanced 
in support of this proposal will receive the careful attention of the 
Government of South Africa. . 
4 
within the borders of the Union, some of its more salient passages 
are here reprinted. 
Professor Pearson after a few introductory remarks proceeds to 
consider the general question of a National Botanic Garden. 
“Tt is,” he points out, “a subject of such far-reaching importance 
to a Pastoral and an Agricultural South Africa that I enter upon it 
with some trepidation lest any ill-considered words of mine should 
tend rather to hinder than to forward an object with which I am 
convinced that this Section as a whole will be in full sympathy. 
some of the pitfalls with which this question is beset. But these 
in the attempt to take a broad view of this question, less than justice 
should be done to the excellent institutions, variously known as 
‘Public,’ ‘Municipal’ or ‘Botanic’ Gardens, Which are 
impaired. On the contrary, they could not but be strengthened by 
the establishment of such a National institution, 
