49 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. [Feb. 
outlay of money, but simply a supply of trustworthy assistants for seni 
that the professor may have ample time for research. Time at is 
vastly more than money, and when our boards of control ‘ae to pemenc 
the reflex influence of original investigators upon our whole system of educa- 
tion, they may see the wisdom of the necessary assistants. It is not to be ex- 
hat we can soon emulate foreign countries in the matter of opportunities 
for original research, but it is a thing that our well-equipped universities shoul 
begin seriously to consider, and the first and most stood step is to give 
professors more time for special work. Furnishing cheap or temporary assist- 
ants will not answer the purpose, but they should be of fine proficiency that 
if desirable the entire work of instruction can be left to their care. In several 
universities we could mention, an abundance of material is stored up, with all 
needed accessories of library and apparatus, only waiting for time to become 
productive. The amount of dead capital laid up in such equipment in this 
country is astonishing. In such cases, an endowment for botanical research 
would mean simply a sufficient outlay to pay a reasonable salary to a compe- 
tent assistant. : 
course many professors have neither ability nor inclination to pursue 
original investigations, and for such we make no plea, But there are some who 
other time-consuming duties, and it is for such that we urge a more liberal 
allotment of time. It has been said that our boards of trustees can not be 
made to understand that anything is needed in a university except teachers 
and equipment for teaching, but we have just that faith in the growing intelli- 
gence of our people, which leads us to believe that we will not long be without 
some such provision as we have suggested. 
THE NEED OF giving careful heed to the work of German botanists, both 
of to-day and of earlier times, is illustrated anew by the experience of Dr. 
Bess: o informs us that he finds in a German work just at hand that the 
ate character of the inflorescence of Cuscuta glomerata, discovered 
by him, and brought to the attention of the American Association a year and 
a half ago, and thought to be a new fact by all American botanists, has been 
known across the water for some time. He will have something further to 
say in regard to the matter in the March number of the American Naturalist. 
This case, which happens to an eminent investigator whose extensive know]- 
edge of German botanical literature is well attested by his writings, gives us 
the opportunity of saying that we have been long inclined to think that not 
enough attention, as a rule, is paid by our less advanced workers to the histori- 
eal study of the subjects they may have in hand. We do not overlook the 
fact that few have the ample library facilities afforded the German student. 
Much can be done to remedy this disadvantage, however, by purchasing the 
seer rate papers which most authors now have printed, and which can be ob- 
ained = mail through foreign dealers. 
THE STRIKING similarity between parts of the biographical sketch of Dr. 
Gray, published in the January Gazerre, and the account of his life, from the 
