Dr. N. L. Britton, Director-in-Chief. 



Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report for 

 the year 1910. 



The development of the Economic Museum has proceeded 

 steadily throughout the year and the collections exhibit 

 a satisfactory degree of growth and improvement. There 

 has been an addition of 327 specimens, and these are, as a 

 rule, of more than usual value and importance. The 

 more noteworthy additions consist of drug specimens 

 contributed by myself, and of specimens, chiefly of fleshy 

 edible fruits, collected by myself on two journeys into 

 Mexico, one in the late winter and one in the summer. 

 In one of the Garden lectures, an abstract of which is 

 printed in our Journal, I have commented at length on 

 the great interest and importance of a study of the eco- 

 nomic plants of Mexico. 



Of the drugs referred to, many represent articles of 

 more or less rare or unusual occurrence, while the Mexican 

 fruits are such as scarcely exist in any other collection, 

 and constitute an important supplement to the herbarium 

 specimens of the same species, except in those still more 

 important cases in which this museum material constitutes 

 our only representation of the species. In at least two 

 cases, my museum specimens represent undescribed species 

 of plants, of which all that is known pertains to these 

 specimens. In another instance, a genus is represented of 

 which almost nothing is known, and our museum specimen 

 is probably its best existing representation. 



A very showy, and at the same time instructive, contri- 

 bution is a collection of raisin grapes of southern California. 

 The clusters, borne on leafy twigs and preserved in formal- 

 dehyde solution, are of immense size, and are preserved 

 with their natural brilliancy of color but little impaired. 



