424 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JUNE 
their personnel. He has included also a description of the publications 
of the Institute, an estimate of the necessary expenses of a stay at the 
gardens, and the cost of the sea voyage from Europe. This first num- 
ber of the Bud/etin will be sent to any botanist who writes for it with 
the idea of preparing for a stay at the gardens. 
The new quarter, to which Mr. Wigman, the head gardener, had 
transferred nearly all of the climbing plants, was in 1896, like all such 
newly planted ground, unsatisfactory to look at. It has now grown 
until it is an attractive portion of the gardens, and the new avenue of 
canary trees in it, which was planted to rival the old avenue (for which 
the gardens are famous in the eyes of travelers), is already very hand- 
some, with its regularly rounded tree tops and light gray trunks. A 
water-garden which had just been laid out in 1896 is now indistin- 
guishable from older parts of the garden, and the fern quarter and collec- 
tion of Pandanus, of which photographs have been so often published, 
have grown more interesting with their coatings of epiphytic algae. 
The small nursery, which was large enough three years ago to repro- 
duce all the plants needed in the gardens, has been more than trebled 
in size, and packages of seeds and cases of plants are being sent all 
over the archipelago (2294 packages and cases in 1897), as well as in 
exchange with all the principal botanic gardens of the world. 
Native labor is being utilized in a new printing office in the gardens, 
where all small forms and even scientific periodicals are printed, the 
compositors being Javanese who do not understand a word of what they 
set up. The work is done very slowly, and the proof reader’s patience 
is taxed to the utmost, but because of the low price of labor and the 
inconvenience of having the work done in Batavia or Amsterdam is 
very great, the office is a great convenience. 
I had the pleasure of accompanying Dr. Treub and Mr. Wigman in 
one of their early morning strolls, in the course of which they bar- 
gained with two neatly dressed Javanese land owners for some paddy 
fields of which to construct experimental plats. In response to Dr. 
Treub’s and Mr. Wigman’s inquiries the Javanese replied with respect- 
ful salaams and remained sitting on their heels as they would before a 
raja. These new plats which were purchased are to be under the 
supervision of a newly appointed specialist, whose acquaintance with 
Javanese vegetables and other native food plants will enable him to 
select and improve them, and to distribute information among the 
natives regarding the best methods of their culture. 
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