76 
at the New York Botanical Garden, {the attendance varies 
from 50 to 500, depending upon the weather, the topic, and 
somewhat upon the time of the year and the extent of the lec- 
turer’s reputation. The average attendance, however, is 
increasing. 
3. Research —Botanic gardens, in the true sense of the word, 
have always been centers of investigation; otherwise they tend 
to become merely pleasure parks. The educational work of the 
early physic gardens was very largely research, while practically 
no attention was given to popularizing. Thus, when John 
Gerarde, in the latter part of the seventeenth ean acting for 
Lord Burleigh, a the letter to Cambridge University 
recommending t a physic paraen be ee there, the 
purpose stated was to encourage ‘‘the facultie of simpling,”’ and 
the oe of Bologna, Montpellier, Leyden, Paris, and Upsala 
(the seat of Linné’s labors), flourished in the middle of the 
pee century for the primary purpose of aiding teaching 
and research. Well-equipped garden laboratories for research 
are becoming more and more common, especially in gardens 
organically connected with, or affiliated with colleges and uni- 
versities. 
4. Publications —At first these were mainly confined to 
catalogues of the living plants, then were introduced guides to 
the grounds, seed lists, lists of plants offered in exchange, guides 
to the museum and conservatories, and finally monthly and other 
periodicals, embodying the results of research, and other matters 
pertaining to the advancement of botany or the organization 
of the institution. 
5. Courses of Lectures and Instruction to Organised Classes.— 
This is one of the latest and most important educational ana 
ments of botanic gardens. Regular courses were 
medical students as early as 1829, in the Chelsea Bisse ee 
and this has now become an important phase of activity, espe- 
cially of all gardens connected in any way with educational insti- 
tutions. In fact didactic instruction by botanic gardens has 
developed parallel with the growing tendency to establish them 
in connection with universities or other educational institutions. 
