lA DESERT BOTANICAL LABORATORY 



from New York, about one and a quarter days from San Francisco, 

 and seventeen hours from Los Angeles. The Laboratory will be con- 

 nected with the city by telephone, and thence it will be in communica- 

 tion by telegraph and cable with as much of the world as the sender of 

 a message may require. The business of the city and the conduct of 

 its municipal affairs are largely in the hands of progressive Americans- 

 The members of the Board, while outfitting at Tucson for a short trip 

 to the Santa Catalina mountains, found a provision store that would 

 have done credit to a metropolis. The elevation of Tucson is 2,390 

 feet, while the highest of the mountains that surround the plain in 

 which the city lies, the Santa Catalina range, reaches about 6,000 feet 

 higher. The University of Arizona, with its School of Mines, and 

 the Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station are located at Tucson. 

 A hospital maintained by a sisterhood and known as St. Mary's Hos- 

 pital is another of the city's institutions. 



Not the least of the advantages of Tucson as a center for the activi- 

 ties of the Laboratory is the broadminded comprehension of the im- 

 portance of the purposes of the institution evinced by the citizens, 

 accompanied by an earnest desire to cooperate in its establishment. 

 This appreciation was expressed in the practical form of subsidies of 

 land for the site of the building and to serve as a preserve for desert 

 vegetation, the installation and construction of a water system, tele- 

 phone, light and power connections, and of a road to the site of the 

 Laboratory, about two miles from Tucson (Plates XI to XIII). The 

 monetary value of these concessions is by no means small, and is much 

 enhanced by the generous spirit in which they were tendered. Presi- 

 dent Manning of the Chamber of Commerce and the gentlemen asso- 

 ciated with him in a special committee to aid in the establishment of 

 the Laboratory were quick to realize the needs of the institution and 

 eager to meet these needs with the resources at their disposal. The 

 members of the Advisory Board gratefully acknowledge the generous 

 treatment accorded the Laboratory by the city of Tucson through its 

 Chamber of Commerce, a body which has placed under lasting obliga- 

 tions all botanists interested in the purposes of the Laboratory. 



President Adams of the University of Arizona, and Professor R. H. 

 Forbes of the Agricultural Experiment Station also rendered impor- 

 tant service in perfecting arrangements and in offering cooperation 

 from their institutions which will do much to increase the efficiency 

 of the Laboratory. 



History. — Historically Tucson is an interesting old town. It was 

 acquired from Mexico as a part of the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, and 



