INTRODUCTION 31 



of Indian Forestry from Cooper's Hill, have so greatly swelled 

 the numbers of undergraduates studying laboratory botany 

 that the very limited accommodation in the old buildings at 

 the Garden proved insufficient, and the present scheme was 

 evolved, of teaching parts of the science at four different 

 centres outside the Garden.* It is an unfortunate plan, wasteful 

 alike of University and College funds and space, and of the time 

 and energy of teachers and students. For such mismanagement 

 the Hebdomadal Council and the Oxford system of government 

 by Committees are principally to blame. They have pro- 

 mulgated no comprehensive scheme for the development of 

 botanical science, nor does it appear likely that any single 

 member of that Council can have the time during the present 

 period of frenzied legislation to study fully the needs of all its 

 multifarious departments or the true relationships between 

 them and the other scientific departments of the University. 



But it is with the open-air Garden that we are now more 

 immediately concerned. Let us hope that better and better 

 uses may be made of the ground available, always bearing in 

 mind the purposes for which it was originally intended, and 

 for which generations of benefactors have given of their 

 wealth. It is none too large for the purpose : plot after plot 

 cannot be sacrificed to the ever-increasing number of branches 

 of the science and to the apparatus necessary for their study, 

 without damage by corrosion to the ancient institution in which 

 we take so much pride. 



Less than twenty years ago the University of Oxford could 

 boast the possession of three venerable institutions, the Bodleian 

 Library, the Ashmolean Museum, and the Botanic Garden, 

 each the oldest of its kind in England and among the oldest 

 in Europe. Visitors from all parts of the civilised world come 



* Department of Comparative Anatomy, at the University Museum ; 

 Department of Rural Economy, Parks Road ; Department of Pathology, 

 Parks Road ; and the Daubeny Laboratory of Magdalen College. 



