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much value. Not only so, but with the opening up of the 
world by means of transport and in other ways, the collection 
of plants by private agency, and their carriage from one country 
to another, has been so much facilitated, that it is difficult 
for a botanic garden to be even the first in the field. This 
was strikingly shown lately in Ceylon in connection with the 
introduction of the new species of Manihot from South America; 
hardly had the gardens got a few hundred, when they began 
to be imported in thousands by private firms. 
In addition to this directly utilitarian work, the tropical 
botanic gardens were intended to facilitate the study of the 
native flora of the country in which they were situated, and 
to collect and identify all the plants of which it was composed. 
In many countries this work is still going on, the local flora 
being even now very imperfectly known. 
The gardens at Buitenzorg had reached much the position 
thus outlined, when Dr. Trevs took over their direction in 
_ 1880. They had a splendid history behind them, of useful plants 
introduced into, and acclimatised in, the Hast Indies, and they - 
had done a great deal of work towards the knowledge of the 
local flora. It is one of Dr. Trevs’s great services to science 
that he was the first to recognise the fact that the older lines 
of work were, to use an expressive Americanism, becoming 
played out, and to direct the activities of the gardens into 
newer lines, which have proved of great service. 
It is evident that an old established garden, which has long 
been active in introducing new plants, must either die of 
inanition as this kind of work decreases in importance, or 
must find new directions of activity. In some countries the 
only thing to be recognised was the futher uselessness of bo- 
tanic gardens upon the old lines, and in such places they have 
often dragged on a very half-hearted existence, if indeed they 
have rot been closed. But in Java, Ceylon, and elsewhere, they 
have expanded in a natural and healthy way into Deparments 
of Agriculture, in which the original botanic garden has be- 
come a very important branch, doing work that may not be 
