REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON GARDENS. 333 



the roadways will be planted both native species and those of 

 foreign introduction, including all the varieties, so that even one 

 not possessing special botanical knowledge can at a glance com- 

 prehend the arrangement and see by comparison the plants which 

 best endure our climate. The Arboretum will thus be a living 

 museum, where the nurseryman, gardener, and private land-owner 

 may come for trustworthy information regarding all trees or 

 shrubs, which will save them the cost of personal experiments, and 

 of delays caused by unfortunate selections. 



The collection of living plants at the Arboretum is richer in 

 species than any other in the United States ; numbering at the 

 present time over two thousand species and varieties of woody 

 plants. Many of these may prove failures ; but it is the work of 

 the Arboretum to show by living illustrations what to select and 

 what to avoid. The collection is being continually increased by a 

 system of exchanges with botanic gardens and similar institu- 

 tions, both public and private, in every part of the world within 

 the temperate zone. Experiments are also being made with seeds 

 of plants taken from widely different localities, with the hope that 

 additions may be made to our lists of hardy trees. This has 

 already been done in several instances, such as Abies concolor^ 

 Pseudotsuga Douglasii, and several others ; the seeds of those 

 plants brought from the warmer parts of the Pacific coast having 

 proved of little use to us, in our changeable climate, while seeds 

 from plants of the same species growing in Colorado under con- 

 ditions similar to those in New England have produced plants 

 which, so far, stand our climate as well as our native trees. 



Besides planting the living specimens, there has been estab- 

 lished a Herbarium ; containing an abundance of specimens of 

 woody plants, collected from various parts of the world, and 

 plants of the same species from different localities, to aid students 

 and others in determining the names of species and the effect of 

 climate and location. There will also be a large collection of all 

 kinds of woods, barks, cones, and other tree productions that may 

 be of use in the arts or sciences. These collections are already 

 very rich in American species, and require a great number of 

 botanical cases to preserve them. They are at present stored in a 

 house owned by Professor Sargent, kindly loaned by him for this 

 pui'pose until such time as a proper building shall be erected on 

 the Arboretum grounds. 



