CURRENT LITERATURE. 
The Buitenzorg Botanic Garden. 
Botanic gardens are not common in America, and moreover their 
usefulness is not generally recognized. From an economic and com- 
mercial point of view they are not considered of sufficient value to 
pay for their maintenance. Even from the purely scientific side of 
the subject the opinion is by no means unanimous that they are worth 
as much as they cost. There are good and sufficient reasons for this 
state of affairs, which, however, need not be rehearsed in this connec 
tion. Recently some indications of a change in popular and scientific 
sentiment have been apparent, encouraged especially by the prom 
inence and acknowledged success of the Missouri Botanic Garden. 
Probably the botanical public has never been more ready to learn 
about botanic gardens, their history, their aims, their resources, than 
now. ‘The recent appearance of the memorial volume! commemorat- 
ing the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the botanic garden 
at Buitenzorg, Java, is therefore opportune. 
€ memorial volume was first published in Dutch, but has been — 
translated into German, and a dozen handsome views of the garden 
added, for the convenience of European botanists, a form that will 
also, no doubt, be acceptable on this side of the Atlantic. The vol- 
ume contains, as an introduction, the anniversary address of Dr. * 
Treub, the director, upon the “value of a tropical botanic garde®, 
and also very interesting articles giving a history of the garden, descrip: 
tion of a stroll through the garden, an account of the herbarium and 
museum, a descriptive and classified list of the scientific investigatio™ 
conducted at the garden, and an account of the more important ecr: 
omic plants cultivated, as well as several lists of plants, books, visiting 
investigators, etc., prepared by the several members of the gat 
staff. Nearly the whole volume will prove of much interest to botat — 
ists in general, quite apart from its local application. 
The seventy-five years (now nearly seventy-seven years), of existe 
of the Buitenzorg garden have seen great changes in its fot a 
Founded in 1817 to secure, test and distribute seeds and cuttings ° ce 
useful plants to the Dutch colonies, it flourished for nearly a any 
then for a dozen years was reduced to inactivity and nearly abolish 4 
*Der botanische Garten, ‘‘'s Lands Plantentuin,”’ zu Buitenzorg auf Jil ; 
Festschrift zur Feier seines 75-jahrigen Bestehens (1817-1892). Leipees iden 
helm Engelmann, 1893. Roy. 8vo. 426 pp. 12 photogravures. 4 maps: ™ " 
