198 BOTANICAL GAZETTE | SEPTEMBER 
effected by a comparatively inexpensive addition, in each case, 
to the standard library and laboratory equipment. Such research 
work as the head of the department and _his assistants find time 
for, as well assuch post-graduate work as may be under- 
taken, can then be provided for in the same manner, piece by 
piece, with the exception of the final touches, demanding the 
use of the largest reference libraries or collections, the provision 
for which is not likely to be far to seek in the stronger research 
centers within a very few years. 
Great herbaria, broad reference libraries, and large stores of; 
apparatus and living or preserved material are possible only to 
few universities and to the still fewer institutions specially 
endowed for research, to which alone, indeed, they seem strictly 
appropriate. For the latter every shade of breadth of founda- 
tion is possible, from the laboratory and library limited to the 
narrowest specialty, to the institution founded and equipped 
for research in any branch of pure or applied botany. Fairly 
perfect equipment of the former class it is possible to find here 
and there, today, but though the seed is sown in several places, 
the broadest institutions, in their entirety, are still to be devel- 
oped, a 
No doubt the first requisite in any such institution 15 4 
library of scope comparable with its own. Whatever may be 
said against the prevalent nomenclature discussions, co 
admitted that they are having the effect of bringing to the bon : 
the half-forgotten work of many of our predecessors, ees G sl 
which, at least, is well worthy of resurrection, and incidentally o 
this is stocking our larger libraries with a class of bo 
have confessedly been too much neglected of late. W 
a moment losing sight of the fact that botany is a study +5 
branch of nature, an object-study, we must recognize that . i 
prosecution beyond the merest elements is not only greatly ae 
moted by but almost dependent upon a knowledge of what : o 
already been done. i tific 
: Where an institution is located in a literary °F eae” d 
center, closely associated with large general libraries, | ss 
it must be 
oks which a 
ithout for 
of one 
