BOTANICAL GARDENS 943 



wholly supported by a municipal park department. South Park comprises 

 an area of one hundred and fifty-five acres of land and water. Certain 

 minor portions of the park are used for active recreations. 



10. The New York Botanical Garden. The enabling act providing for 

 the establishment of the New York Botanical Garden was passed by the 

 Legislature of the State of New York in 1891, which act was amended in 

 1894, 1896 and 1914. The movement for the establishment of the garden 

 was inaugurated and the legislation procured by a committee of the Torrey 

 Botanical Club appointed in 1889. The garden is a cooperative enterprise 

 between the City of New York and the New York Botanical Garden Cor- 

 poration. Originally about two hundred and fifty acres of land in the 

 northern part of Bronx Park were set aside for the garden. This area has 

 been added to from time to time until the total area of the garden is now 

 (1927) approximately four hundred acres. This with the exception of the 

 new site of the Missouri Botanical Garden is the largest area devoted to 

 botanical garden purposes in the United States. (For a map and general 

 plan of the garden see pages 963-966. For the plan of its administration see 

 pages 967-970; and for the method of financing it see pages 976977.) 



11. Brooklyn Botanical Garden, New York. The attempt to establish 

 the Hunt Botanical Garden in Brooklyn has already been noted. In the 

 original plan of Prospect Park a plan for a botanical garden was included 

 but apparently no attempt was ever made to carry out the plan. The 



third attempt to establish a botanical garden in Brooklyn was consum- 

 mated in 1910 by the establishment of the present Brooklyn Botanic Garden. 

 The garden now occupies a site of approximately fifty acres. It is operated 

 as a department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. The garden 

 is a cooperative enterprise between the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and 

 Sciences and the City of New York. The city owns the land upon which 

 the garden is located; it builds, lights, heats and repairs the buildings and 

 annually makes an appropriation for general maintenance. Its relation with 

 the city is through the department of parks. With assured financial sup- 

 port from the city and with a gradually increasing endowment coupled 

 with growing membership lists, the Brooklyn Botanical Garden gives every 

 promise of being able to carry on indefinitely with increasing effectiveness 

 the highly useful educational, recreational and scientific work which it has 

 already so admirably done during the past years of its history. 



12. Other Botanical Gardens. During the latter part of the nineteenth 

 century botanical gardens were established at the University of California, 

 University of Pennsylvania and Smith College. 



13. The National Botanic Garden, Washington, D. C. This garden was 

 established in 1820 by the Columbian Institute, a private organization 



