
1901 | BRIEFER ARTICLES 425 
The new laboratory for pharmaceutical research is a model of com- 
pactness and convenience. The library building, which was the gener- 
ous gift of Mr. Janse, of Amsterdam, has now not only the increased 
library of the gardens but the considerable collections of books for- 
merly belonging to the scientific society of Batavia. The removal of 
the library from the herbarium building gives Dr. Boerlage greater 
space for his rapidly growing collection, and the old building, for- 
merly occupied as the pharmaceutical laboratory, is to be utilized for 
an exhibition of economic plant products. 
A lively interest in the fruits of the island has been awakened 
among the planters, and a horticultural society with more than 300 
members has been formed. The first exhibition of fruits, which was 
held in December last, was a great success, and the garden authorities 
hope through cooperation with members of the society to secure a col- 
lection of the best varieties of fruits, and by distributing grafts from 
these, to replace the inferior seedling kinds, which now furnish the 
fruit for the tables of the Europeans. A seedless doekoe (Zansium 
domesticum) has already been found, and other superior varieties are 
known to exist in the island. Almost everywhere in the tropics fruit 
trees are wild, and it is one of the curious observations which a traveler 
makes that little is done to improve fruits which are evidently capa- 
ble of very great improvement. There are mangosteens which without 
selection are nearly or quite seedless, and yet Europeans choose to 
plant seeds instead of grafts, and still have a strange fear that a 
grafted tree will be a short-lived sickly thing and not repay for the 
extra trouble taken with it. The new horticultural society should do 
much to enlighten the planters and enable them to plant and breed 
better fruits, even in a country noted for its delicious pineapples and 
incomparable mangosteens. 
There are doubtless many other lines along which the gardens at 
Buitenzorg have improved. The selection of sugar cane seedlings, the 
hybridizing of coffee, the establishment of a new zoological museum to 
be under the management of Dr. Konigsberger and to contain mounted 
specimens of all the many interesting animals and cases of the injurious 
and biologically interesting insects of the archipelago, were all propo- 
sitions under consideration at the time of my short visit in January. 
I am thoroughly convinced that to any one who expects to make a 
thorough study of tropical plants a visit to this Botanical Institute will 
be of the greatest advantage. Its opportunities surpass those of any 
other in the world.— Davin G. FaircHILD, Department of Agriculture. 
