Besides such a formal garden of comprehensive scope 



the Botanical Garden might well be made serviceable to 



garden lovers by constructing 

 Model gardens , . , . 



model gardens ol smaller size, 



and separate garden features adapted to specific needs. 

 Such might include, for example, gardens for a city back- 

 yard and for a small suburban home, the possible uses of 

 vines in decoration, decorative window boxes, ornamental 

 borders, schemes for combinations of flowers and shrub- 

 bery, etc. The pregnant suggestion was made by one of 

 the members and received with enthusiasm by all to whom 

 it was mentioned that the Botanical Garden reproduce 

 on a proper scale and exhibit during the coming summer 

 one of the prize-winning designs for a scheme for the 

 ornamental planting of a small suburban lot with house 

 and garage, which was offered in the competition con- 

 ducted by the Garden Club of America at the recent 

 Spring Flower Show of the Horticultural Society of New 

 York. Many other ways might be conceived by which the 

 Botanical Garden might make its grounds more attractive 

 and at the same time more serviceable to the public. 

 In displaying the esthetic possibilities of plant life it ought 

 to lead, and not follow. But no extension of its features 

 along these lines should be entered upon without the 

 advice of a landscape architect of imagination and taste. 

 Our greenhouse collections are extensive, varied, of 

 great value and great botanical interest. It is the botanist, 



indeed, looking for abundant 

 Greenhouse collections . . , . . n 



species, to whom they chiefly 



appeal. They may often, too, attract the untutored and 

 uncritical in crowds, but to the intelligent layman, 

 familiar with the art of greenhouse culture and with the 

 educational and esthetic possibilities of greenhouse dis- 

 plays, they are disappointing. Many of the houses are 

 much overcrowded ; striking treasures of the collection are 



