BOTANICAL GARDENS 953 



upon the character and completeness of the scientific equipment and the 

 quality and work of the scientific staff. 'Few valuable results can be 

 reached in the investigation of economic plants and their products unless 

 the scientific equipment is well developed. The two departments must 

 w r ork conjointly, both on account of the necessity of knowing just what 

 species is under investigation, its structure, distribution and literature, 

 and in order that the most approved and exact methods may be used in 

 the research.' Likewise, 'the cultivation of decorative plants and espe- 

 cially the fostering of a taste for them, and the bringing of unusual or new 

 species to attention and effecting their general introduction' is related 

 fundamentally to the scientific department, for it is this department that 

 must be relied upon 'for the accurate determination of these plants, infor- 

 mation concerning their habits and structure, and suggestions regarding 

 the conditions of their growth. ' 



The library, herbarium, museums, laboratories and experimental 

 greenhouse or houses are the source whence exact information regarding 

 the name, structure, habits, life processes, and products of plants are 

 derived, and they are the more useful as they are the more complete and 

 fully equipped. It is practically impossible for any one library to have all 

 the literature of botany and related sciences, any one herbarium to possess 

 authentic and complete representation of all species of plants, or any one 

 museum to be thoroughly illustrative; absolute perfection along these lines 

 cannot be obtained, but the more closely it is approximated the better the 

 results. The research work of the scientific department should be organ- 

 ized along all lines of botanical inquiry, including taxonomy, morphology, 

 anatomy, physiology and paleontology, and the laboratories should afford 

 ample opportunities and equipment for their successful prosecution. The 

 arrangement of areas devoted to systematic planting, and the proper label- 

 ing of the species grown, are important duties of the scientific department. 

 The sequence of classes, orders and families is usually made to follow some 

 'botanical system.' It is highly desirable that this should be a system which 

 indicates the natural relations of the families, as understood at the time 

 the garden is laid out; and to be elastic enough to admit of subsequent 

 modification as more exact information relative to their relationships is 

 obtained. The weight of the present opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of 

 an arrangement from the more simple to the more complex, and this will 

 apply not only to the systematic plantations, but to the systematic museum 

 and the herbarium." 



The design of botanical gardens can best be illustrated by the plans 

 of a few existing gardens in the United States. The following plans include 

 the new plan of the Harvard Botanical Garden, the plan of the Arnold 

 Arboretum, the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis and the proposed 

 developmental plan of the new site at Gray Summit, Missouri, and the 

 New York Botanical Garden. 



