April 29, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



647 



try to produce many such pleasing effects. 

 A few very pleasing trees appeal more to 

 human nature than do many only moder- 

 ately pleasing. This principle fits per- 

 fectly, also, with my first condition of col- 

 lege instruction above mentioned, that only 

 undergraduates make use of the garden, 

 and the number of kinds they can utilize is 

 not very great. In all scientific institu- 

 tions, whether gardens, museums, or courses 

 of instruction, we seem to pass first through 

 an accumulation stage, in which complete- 

 ness is the ideal and we try to collect all 

 the kinds we can. Later we pass to a selec- 

 tion and individualization stage, in which 

 we pick out the most essential objects and 

 give each an ample and distinctive setting. 

 We have passed into the second stage in 

 our museums and to some extent in our 

 instruction, but hardly yet in our botanical 

 gardens. 



I pass finally to the greenhouses, the 

 importance of which I can not too strongly 

 emphasize. These shovdd be arranged, for 

 convenience of both use and management, 

 upon a climatic basis, including cool tem- 

 perate, warm temperate, desert, stove and 

 palm houses at least, furnished with a 

 selection of well-labeled plants of the chief 

 scientific interest, and with room for the 

 growing of class material and for horticul- 

 tural and physiological experiment, while 

 the closer the attachment of the green- 

 houses to laboratories the better. I am 

 here, as you may suspect, outlining the 

 arrangement of the range developed under 

 my charge, the practical working of which 

 is extremely satisfactory. 



The educational advantages of good 

 greenhouses are too well known to all to 

 need comment, but I may add another 

 advantage not so obvious, viz., that they 

 provide an extremely attractive and in- 

 structive place for visit in winter, not only 

 by students but by their friends and visit- 



ors ; and this is something of marked ad- 

 vantage in rural communities. Indeed, 

 the instruction and enjoyment derived by 

 the public from outdoor gardens as well as 

 greenhouses constitute no small reason for 

 their development. For not only do they 

 attract attention and sympathy to a college, 

 but they are also a wholly appropriate and 

 serviceable form of college extension. 



There are two warnings I would sound 

 in connection with the greenhouses. First, 

 they should be kept free from all entangle- 

 ments in connection with the supply of 

 ornamental plants for college functions. 

 Such a use is bad for the plants, subversive 

 of a scientific interest in them by the gar- 

 deners, and derogatory to the reputation 

 of the greenhouses. The respect of the 

 college community is far greater for a col- 

 lection of plants kept exclusively for educa- 

 tional purposes, and for the scientific in- 

 terests involved therein, than for any col- 

 lection at their beck and call for social 

 purposes. Second, they should be kept 

 free from any attempt to make them help 

 pay their own cost. The florist business is 

 a highly specialized one, conducted, as a 

 rule, on a narrow margin of profit, and 

 no range of college greenhouses can earn 

 any considerable amount without devoting 

 thereto an amount of space and gardener's 

 time wholly incompatible with any consid- 

 erable attention to educational objects. 

 Moreover, the feeling of local florists is 

 quite sure to be aroused against an institu- 

 tion conducting a competition which they 

 are -sure to regard as unfair. These objec- 

 tions do not apply to the greenhouses of 

 agricultural colleges; where the problems 

 are different, and where it is essential that 

 the students learn to raise plants for profit. 



So, I may summarize my ideal. botanical 

 garden for a college by saying that it con- 

 sists first of a good range of greenhouses, 

 second of a collection of trees and shrubs, 



