446 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [DECEMBER 1899 
of America, becomes a patron of that organization. At the Columbus (0.) 
meeting last August, among other amendments to the constitution of the 
society, one was pe admitting patrons. The clause relating to patrons 
reads as follow: 
The payment to the treasurer of the sum not less than $250 at any one time, ora 
bequest of such sum, shall constitute the donor a patron of the society. The names of 
patrons shall be published with the annual lists of officers and members, and the 
patrons shall be entitled to receive copies of all the pean of the society. 
Patrons’ fees shall be added to the permanent fund of the s 
Mr. Delafield, therefore, becomes the first patron a the Botanical Society 
of America.— GEORGE F. ATKINSON, Secretary. 
THE MissourI BOTANICAL GARDEN has this summer received a decision 
from the Supreme Court of Missouri which empowers the trustees of the gar- 
den at their discretion to sell unproductive endowment real estate, which was 
made inalienable by the will of Henry Shaw, the founder of the garden. 
While it is not probable that sales will be made rapidly, the purpose being to 
effect them at full market value, the power to dispose of this property promises 
to add many thousand dollars to the annual revenue of the establishment 
within a few years, and it makes available for immediate use each year some 
ten or fifteen thousand dollars which business wisdom has compelled the 
trustees to hold out of the current income thus far, as an emergency fund for 
the protection of the property when street improvements and other special 
expenses should be forced upon it. 
Immediate use is to be made of some of the money thus liberated, by the 
addition to the garden of about twenty acres of ground, to be graded and 
planted in accordancewith plans made by the landscape architects, F. L. and 
J. C. Olmsted, and to represent in synopsis the principal features of the North 
American flora. 
