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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 801 



convenient arrangement have persisted as 

 dominant characters, the recessives or 

 mutants rarely proving in close enough 

 harmony with environment to hold their 

 own apart, unless protected. 



The average botanical garden, in fact, is 

 a museum of living plants, and as such is 

 affected by whatever affects museums of 

 other classes. It exists for the exemplifica- 

 tion of coordinated facts ; for the provision 

 of material for dissociated demonstration 

 and for study ; and, in so far as it can meet 

 the requirement, it is charged with the 

 duty of making such study of its materials. 

 Departure from this average tends to con- 

 vert it into a show-window, a warehouse or 

 a laboratory, according to the direction 

 and degree of specialization. 



The administration of a garden of this 

 type rests upon fundamental principles 

 common to the fields of business, education 

 and research. Few visitors to a museum 

 or a garden carry away a distinct impres- 

 sion of fifty objects, though they have 

 gazed upon and perhaps observed hun- 

 dreds—while they may have seen thou- 

 sands. If they have derived pleasure and 

 an impression that the collection is worth 

 while, and have carried away an under- 

 standing of something not before so well 

 understood, they are likely to return and 

 to send others to see what they have seen. 

 The second, and especially the last, of 

 these results depends upon some salient 

 feature of the exhibit. Beauty, taste and 

 order may give pleasure and make a collec- 

 tion worth seeing for the general impres- 

 sion it creates; but a lesson is much more 

 often taught than picked up. In this lies 

 a strong reason for supplementing even the 

 greatest collections by sjmopses of various 

 kinds and for frequently changing or alter- 

 nating these. This principle is a rule in 

 retail commerce; it is understood in the 

 best museums, and is admirably practised 



in the display of works of art. The out- 

 of-door plantations of a garden are less 

 tractable in some ways than merchandise, 

 paintings or collections of gems, prepared 

 animals, or such botanical material as is 

 usually found in museums or even in plant 

 houses; but if the arrangement of the 

 grounds is right, these may be supple- 

 mented by a great variety of special fea- 

 tures knit into or appended to the general 

 plantation in such a way as not to affect its 

 unity of design. 



Enough— but not too much— of every- 

 thing is an essential rule, which applies 

 with increasing force as one passes from 

 the general to the particular— from land- 

 scape to lesson; perhaps nowhere so force- 

 fully as in marking an exhibit. Essential 

 are a key-map to the whole, from which its 

 purpose and the location of its larger units 

 are quickly ascertained; group and syn- 

 opsis markers exemplifying the happy 

 mean between obtrusiveness and obscurity; 

 increasing prominence to the details of 

 supplementary collections; and everywhere 

 and for everything labels showing at least 

 the common and botanical names, the geo- 

 graphic home, and a key to the history of 

 each individual. Too much of or on a 

 label may be as bad as too little, and what 

 I have indicated, if truly and legibly but 

 unobtrusively presented for each specimen, 

 opens the books for all that is known of it 

 and its kind. But when it is transferred 

 from its place among the marshaled re- 

 serves to a position in which it exemplifies 

 some special fact it acquires a need of justi- 

 fying this place which is best met by in- 

 creased information on its label. A collec- 

 tion of plants, though accurately named, is 

 but a living atlas, the special meaning of 

 which calls for explanatory text ; and this, 

 if appreciated, points to strict limitation 

 and descriptive labeling of those parts of 

 a collection which, permanently or tran- 



