(77) 
1894. The enterprise was inaugurated and the legislation 
procured by a committee of the Torrey Botanical Club, ap- 
pointed in 1889. The act of incorporation provided that, 
when the corporation created should have raised or secured 
by subscription a sum not less than $250,000, the Commis- 
sioners of Public Parks were authorized to set apart and ap- 
propriate a portion of one of the public parks, not exceeding 
two hundred and fifty acres, and the Board of Estimate and 
Apportionment was authorized to issue bonds, aggregating 
the sum of $500,000, for the construction and equipment, 
within the grounds, of the necessary buildings. The sub- 
scription of $250,000 required by the Act of Incorporation 
was completed in June, 1895, and the Commissioners of Pub- 
lic Parks, in the following month, formally appropriated two 
hundred and fifty acres of the northern part of Bronx Park 
for the purposes of the Garden. Since that time the prepara- 
tion of plans for the development of the tract has been steadily 
progressing, including designs for the museum building and 
a large horticultural house. This planning is still in progress, 
in charge of a commission of architects, engineers, gardeners 
and botanists, who will complete their work within a short 
time and be ready to submit a complete scheme to the Board 
of Managers during the coming autumn. Meanwhile, much 
preliminary work has been accomplished in clearing the 
ground, in grading, in the planting of borders, in the estab- 
lishment of an extensive nursery, and in the accumulation of 
herbarium, museum and library material. Through a co- 
operative agreement entered into with Columbia University, 
the herbarium and botanical library of the University will be 
deposited with the Garden, and most of the research and 
graduate work of the University in botany will be carried on 
in the Museum Building. 
The endowment fund has been materially increased, and 
about four hundred and thirty persons have become annual 
members of the Garden, contributing ten dollars a year each 
to its support. The publication of a Bulletin has been com- 
menced by the issue, in April, of the first number of Volume I. 
