library, proposed for last summer and referred to in my 

 last annual report, has been deferred until the spring of 

 1910. 



An additional steel bookcase was purchased and placed 

 in the west library room, and an additional similar bookcase 

 is now desirable. 



Laboratories 



Laboratory work with special students and visiting in- 

 vestigators has been continued during the year, 28 such 

 special students having been registered. Only ordinary 

 additions to the equipment of the laboratories have been 

 necessary. The Director of the Laboratories has given 

 special attention to the protection of living plants in the 

 grounds from plant diseases and insect pests. 



Monthly conferences of students and members of the 

 staff have been held excepting during the summer, and 

 records of the subjects discussed at these meetings have 

 been printed in the monthly journal. Continuous rainfall 

 and temperature records have been kept during the year; 

 the rainfall was unevenly distributed and the grounds 

 suffered at times from protracted drought. 



The tropical laboratory at Cinchona, Jamaica, was occu- 

 pied during the early part of the year by Miss Alexandrina 

 Taylor, a former student of the Garden, and her mother; 

 Miss Taylor continued there her studies on the life history 

 of ferns. During our visit to Jamaica in the spring, Mrs. 

 Britton spent some time with Miss Taylor at Cinchona in 

 collecting and studying some of the rarer mosses of the 

 Jamaica Mountains. Miss Taylor made very extensive 

 collections of plants during her residence there, which have 

 been partly incorporated in the Garden herbarium, but 

 some are still being studied. 



During a portion of the summer Professor F. O. Bower 

 of Glasgow University, Scotland, was in residence at Cin- 

 chona engaged in similar studies and in the collection of 

 material for subsequent work. During the last half of the 

 year Dr. Forrest Shreve, a former student of the Garden, 



