181 
this group of agaves, the old plant dies soon after it forms flowers 
and fruits but previous to this they send out suckers from the 
base, which serve to propagate the species. The plant now in 
flower is already doing this. We have carefully pollenated the 
flowers, and trust that the plant may mature some fertile seed. 
GrorcEe V. Nasu. 
NOTES, NEWS AND COMMENTS. 
n additional appropriation of $75,000, for the continuation of 
construction work at the Garden, voted by the Board of Estimate 
and Apportionment on June 24, 1904, became available by the 
signature of His Honor Mayor McClellan, on August 9, 1904, 
having been before the Board of Aldermen for the required period 
of six weeks. It is expected that the expenditure of this money 
will complete all the driveway bridges and their approaches, and 
all, or very nearly all, of the driveways laid down in the general 
plan of the Garden, approved by the Board of Managers and by 
the Department of Parks, June 21, 1897; also the practical com- 
pletion of all the heavy grading work, and it will also effect the 
continuation of the path system east and north of the Museum 
Building. The largest single piece of work contemplated is the 
construction of the bridge to carry the main driveway across the 
valley of the lakes north of the Museum Building, for which a 
contract may be awarded by the Park Department in the autumn. 
Dr. . L. Britton sailed for Nassau, New Provi- 
dence, on cs 19, for the purpose of continuing the explora- 
tion of the Bahamas. 
Dr. W. A. Murrill has been appointed Assistant Curator, to 
take the place of Prof. F. S, Earle, who resigned earlier in the 
year to become Director of the Experiment Station of Cub: 
. Gager, of Albany, has been appointed ae 
Assent and entered upon his new duties September 1. 
Misses W. J. Robinson and M. E. Brackett, who had gone to 
the Tropical Laboratory of the Garden, at Cinchona, Jamaica, in 
July, to carry on some morphological investigations, have returned 
to New York. 
