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onomy, morphology, anatomy, physiology, and paleontology, 
and the laboratories should afford ample opportunities and 
equipment for their successful prosecution. 
The arrangement of the areas devoted to systematic plant- 
ing, and the proper labelling of the species grown, are im- 
portant duties of the scientific department. The sequence of 
classes, orders and families is usually made to follow some 
“botanical system.” It is highly desirable that this should 
be a system which indicates the natural relations of the fami- 
lies, as understood at the time the garden is laid out, and be 
elastic enough to admit of subsequent modification as more 
exact information relative to those relationships is obtained. 
The weight of present opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of 
an arrangement from the more simple to the more complex, 
and this will apply not only to the systematic plantations, but 
to the systematic museum and herbarium. 
The scientific possibilities of a botanical garden are the 
greater if an organic or coéperative relationship exists be- 
tween it and a university, thus affording ready facilities for 
information on other sciences. 
The Philanthropic Element. A botanical garden oper- 
ates as a valuable philanthropic agency, both directly and 
indirectly. Its direct influence lies through its affording an 
orderly arranged institution for the instruction, information and 
recreation of the people, and it is more efficient for these 
purposes than a park, as it is more completely developed and 
liberally maintained. Its indirect, but equally important, 
philanthropic operation is through the discovery and dissemi- 
nation of facts concerning plants and their products, obtained 
through the studies of the scientific staff and by others using 
the scientific equipment. 
NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION OF BOTANICAL GARDENS. 
There are somewhat over 200 institutions denominated 
botanical gardens, but only a few of them meet the require- 
ments of the foregoing sketch. Some are essentially pleasure 
parks, with the plants more or less labelled; most of them pay 
