340 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



which, to the graduate of the ordinary school is frequently full of 

 uncertainty, not to say peril, especially in a cit3^ Given a love 

 for plant life, young people's summer vacations will afford 

 evidence of sanity and not of folly and frivolity ; and the delight- 

 ful summer will all be lived over again in the winter as the speci- 

 mens are brought out and studied. The number of eminent men 

 in France who make botany an avocation is astonishingly large ; 

 and it is fitting that this Society should use its influence, as it is 

 now doing, not only to make the number of such men large in this 

 country, but the number of women also ; and this herbarium and 

 school garden work gives good promise of doing just that thing. 



The opportunity to see two thousand plants spread out for 

 unrestricted study is not a common one, and should be appreciated 

 by adults interested in plants as well as by children. One visitor 

 was the author and illustrator of that delightful book "Familiar 

 Flowers of Field and Garden." He said it was " a golden oppor- 

 tunity " for him, and remained to the very end, making sketches 

 of the variations of well-known plants. 



Professor Hanus, Assistant Professor of Pedagogy at Harvard 

 College, was enthusiastic over the exhibits, which he had not 

 heard of before. He immediately sent over his wife, child, and 

 students from his seminary class. 



To make this work thoroughly effective we should have the aid 

 of herbarium specimens, by means of which New England plants 

 may be determined with certainty. 



For many years a good deal of money has been expended in the 

 purchase of valuable books on flowers, trees, ferns, grasses, 

 mosses, lichens, fungi, etc. That is a great piece of good fortune. 

 Nevertheless, colored plates cannot fully take the place of real 

 specimens. These beautiful and useful books should be supple- 

 mented by herbarium specimens of Massachusetts, at least, and 

 perhaps of New England. What a treasure such a collection of 

 leaf sprays as Master Faxon's would be to one who wished to 

 study the native and introduced trees of Massachusetts ! How 

 much Mr. Davenport's collection of ferns in the librar}^ is consulted ! 

 So it would be with a collection of grasses, sedges, lichens, mosses, 

 orchids, golden-rods, and flowering plants generally, especially 

 those of New England. If additional room is ever made for the 

 library, cannot some small space be provided for a comparatively 

 local herbarium? Wall space of ten feet square would seem to be 

 suflicient. 



