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REPORT OF THE HONORARY CURATOR OF THE 
ECONOMIC COLLECTIONS. 
To THE DIRECTOR-IN-CHIEF. 
Dear Sir: Y have the honor to submit herewith my report 
upon work on the Economic Collections during the year 1899. 
Work has been carried on in accordance with the plans 
submitted in my report a year ago. 
Using Dragendorff’s Economic Botany as a basis, a check 
list of the most important economic species of plants of the 
world has been compiled by Mr. Ringe. That part of this 
list which refers to the plants of the United States has been 
greatly extended, and, of more importance, greatly perfected 
in plan, by reference to an unpublished work on the economic 
botany of the United States, kindly loaned by the author, Dr. 
Valary Havard, U. S. A., now at Santiago, Cuba. 
Special efforts have been made to complete the local col- 
lection of economic material, various members of the staff, 
more especially Messrs. Ringe and Wilson, having devoted 
such time to this work as could be spared from duties of more 
immediate importance. Owing to the great amount of time 
required for this form of collection a slight modification of the 
plan followed last year was employed. Instead of collecting 
a number of sets for exchange purposes, it was deemed best 
to concentrate effort upon a complete single set for our own 
shelves, deferring the collection of duplicates until another 
season. Owing to your consideration in allowing every pos- 
sible opportunity for this work, and the energy displayed by 
the assistants, this collection is not only large and important, 
but so beautifully prepared as to promise a very attractive 
display in our cases. These collections comprise 525 speci- 
mens, representing 175 species. 
A separate list was compiled of 43 species of poisonous 
plants of local occurrence. Of these about 100 specimens, 
representing 35 species, were collected with the same care 
which characterized the collection of the class last mentioned. 
