84 



The twenty-first annual report of the Brooklyn Botanic 

 Garden, 1931, reports an increase in the attendance for the year 

 and a slight increase in the endowment funds. An extensive edu- 

 cational program has been carried on, both at the garden and 

 through materials sent out to the schools. Research work is in 

 progress at the garden along lines of plant pathology, disease re- 

 sistance, forest pathology, especially on connection with chest- 

 nut blight, work on beardless iris, and work in systematic 

 botany and genetics. 



The New York State Conservation Department has an- 

 nounced the purchase of 24,000 acres of land to be added to the 

 forest preserve. One tract of 21,000 acres in northern Herkimer 

 County, near the Beaver River, is the largest block added to the 

 preserve in recent years. It is extensively wooded with virgin 

 forest. The other tract of land consists of 3,000 acres, comprising 

 Howland's Island in the Seneca River east of Seneca Falls in 

 Cayuga County. It consists of meadow land in the Montezuma 

 marshes. It is partly wooded, but most of it consists of aban- 

 doned farm land. It will be developed into a game refuge or 

 public hunting ground. (It is difficult to see how it can be both 

 at one time.) 



