( 62 ) 
BOTANICAL GARDENS.* 
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. 
The cultivation of plants within small areas for their heal- 
ing qualities by the monks of the Middle Ages appears to 
have been the beginning of the modern botanical garden, al- 
though these medieval gardens doubtless took their origin 
from others of greater antiquity. Botanical gardens were 
thus primarily formed for purely utilitarian purposes, although 
the esthetic study of planting and of flowers must doubtless 
have appealed to their owners and visitors. Their function as 
aids in scientific teaching and research, the one which at pres- 
ent furnishes the dominating reason for their existence, did 
not develop much, if at all, before the sixteenth century, and 
prior to the middle of the seventeenth century a considerable 
number existed in Europe in which this function was recog- 
nized to a greater or less degree, of which those at Bologna, 
Montpellier, Leyden, Paris and Upsala were perhaps the most 
noteworthy. ‘The ornamental and decorative taste for plant- 
ing had meanwhile been slowly gaining ground, as well as 
the desire to cultivate rare or unusual species, and during the 
eighteenth century attained a high degree of development. 
Many persons of wealth and influence fostered this taste and 
became, through the employment of men skilled in botany 
and horticulture, generous patrons of science. The world was 
searched for new and rare plants, which were brought home 
to Europe for cultivation, and many sumptuous volumes, de- 
scribing and delineating them, were published, mainly through 
the same patronage. The older gardens were essentially pri- 
vate institutions, but as the rights of the people became more 
and more recognized, many existing establishments and an 
increasing number of newly founded ones became, to a greater 
or less extent, open to the public, either through an admit- 
*Address by Vice-President Nathaniel Lord Britton, Chairman of Section 
G., American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Buffalo, N. Y., 
August, 1896. 
