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intended for the visiting public, considerations of convenient 
access, satisfactory water supply, and the distribution of 
crowds must be borne in mind, in connection with the land- 
scape design. The planting should follow, as nearly as pos- 
sible, a natural treatment, except immediately around the 
larger buildings and at the entrances, where considerable 
formality is desirable for architectural reasons. It is especially 
desirable that as much natural treatment as possible should be 
given to the areas devoted to systematic planting—herbaceous 
grounds, fruticetum, arboretum. The rectilinear arrange- 
ment of plant beds found in most of the older gardens has 
become abhorent to landscape lovers, and the sequence of 
families desired can usually be quite as well obtained by 
means of curved-margined groups. 
The cultivation of decorative plants, and especially the 
fostering of a taste for them, and the bringing of unusual or 
new species to attention and effecting their general introduc- 
tion, are important functions of a botanical garden. For the 
accurate determination of these plants, information concern- 
ing their habits and structure, and suggestions regarding the 
condition of their growth, the zsthetic side must rely on the 
scientific. 
The Scientitic or Biologic Klement. The important rela- 
tions of the scientific department to the economic and esthetic 
have already been alluded to. The library, herbarium, mu- 
seums and laboratories are the sources whence exact infor- 
mation regarding the name, structure, habits, life processes 
and products of plants are derived, and they are the more 
useful as they are the more complete and thoroughly equipped. 
It is practically impossible for any one library to have all the 
literature of botany and related sciences, any one herbarium 
to possess an authentic and complete representation of all 
species of plants, or any one museum to be thoroughly illus- 
trative; absolute perfection along these lines cannot be ob- 
tained, but the more closely it is approximated the better the re- 
sults. The researgh work of the scientific department should be 
organized along all lines of botanical inquiry, including tax- 
