REPORT 



COMMITTEE ON THE LIBRARY, 



FOR THE YEAR 1889. 



The Committee on the Library report, as usual, the expenditure 

 of the Stickney Fund and of the Society's appropriation. The 

 former is applied only to the purchase of books, no part of it 

 being used for periodical publications or for binding. 



It brings to this room, year by year, the most desirable of 

 recent publications as well as the most valuable works of older 

 date. Their titles are all printed in the Librarian's report, but it 

 maj' not be out of place to make special mention of Blanco's 

 " Flora of the Philippine Islands," in five magnificent volumes, 

 with colored plates. 



The Society's appropriation suffices for many uses : it purchases 

 <3ur numerous periodicals ; it pays for binding ; it goes to continue 

 the Card Catalogue of Plates. This Catalogue still grows at the 

 usual rate, though we long since lost the count of its multitudinous 

 thousands of cards. It proves a larger undertaking than we at 

 first expected ; so much the more important was it therefore that 

 it should be taken in hand. 



The Catalogue of Books and subjects, mentioned in last year's 

 report, was continued up to June of the present year, when the 

 work upon this room compelled its abandonment until such time as 

 the shelf place of the books could be permanently fixed. 



We still receive numerous. Seed and Plant Catalogues, all of 

 which after lying on the table for a time are put away to be kept 

 as valuable material for the history of horticulture. 



The most obvious and important fact in the year's historj' of 

 the Librar}^ is, of course, the addition of the gallery which gives 

 us the book-space for which we have so persistently asked. A 

 glance at its shelves after the re-arrangement of the books will 

 probably remove an}^ doubt (if any there be) that it was needed. 



For the Committee, 



W. E. ENDICOTT, Chairman. 



