590 FOREST CULTURE AND 
the poets’ ideals, are they not always among the 
foremost ? And where can all this find a more vivid 
and a more easy interpretation than in a botanic gar- 
den, true to its purposes ? Few, even of enlightened 
mipds, ever think from how many different zones, 
from how many distant parts of the globe, all these 
materials of necessity and comfort have to be gather- 
ed. Itisclearly the object of an institution, the mean- 
ing of which we now briefly discuss, to bring the 
sources of all these things before our contemplation, 
so that the observer may trace—by the impressive 
teaching of living forms, all mute, yet all telling a 
tale of their own—the origin of those vegetable sub- 
stances with which the demands of our occupation or 
the enjoyments of life bring us in constant contact. 
But shall we rest here? Ought not our meditation, 
when leading us from lifeless material to the won- 
drous living forms of vegetation, bring us nearer, 
also, the ever-wise Originator of the world ? 
** All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul, 
That, changed through all, is yet in all the same, 
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame; 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, 
Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent.”—PoPE. 
~The large collections, then, in a botanic garden, 
whether of growing plants or of museum material, are 
not amassed without serving important purposes, and 
not accumulated merely to satisfy transient curiosity. 
This may be shown by facts of vast number ; let us 
note one or the other in testimony. As indispensable 
auxiliaries we want nowadays, for studies in a botanic 
institution, manifold collections, which, in fact, must 
