H BOTANIC GARDENS. 



to the list of these institutions in America. Its establishment 

 was authorized by the Legislature in 1891, but the enabling act 

 being defective, no steps could be taken in its organization until 

 1894. To comply with the act of incorporation, a sum of two 

 hundred and fifty thousand dollars was raised by private sub- 

 scription, and then the Commissioners of Public Parks of New 

 York City were authorized to set aside two hundred and fifty 

 acres of Bronx Park, and the Board of Estimate and Apportion- 

 ment was directed to issue bonds amounting to five hundred 

 thousand dollars, to be used in the construction of the necessary 

 buildings, greenhouses, museums, laboratories, etc. 



The scope of this institution may be best illustrated by the 

 f ollowing extract from the act of incorporation : " To be located 

 in the city of New York for the purpose of establishing and 

 maintaining a botanical garden and museum and arboretum 

 therein, for the collection and culture of plants, flowers, shrubs, 

 and trees, the advancement of botanical science and knowledge, 

 and the prosecution of original research therein and in kindred 

 subjects, for affording instruction in the same, for the prosecution 

 and exhibition of ornamental and decorative horticulture and 

 gardening, and for the entertainment, recreation, and instruction 

 of the people." The site of the garden embraces an area of such 

 wide diversities of soil and slope, marsh, meadow, shores, and 

 granite ridges, that it will afford peculiarly fitting conditions for 

 the growth of an extensive flora in the open air. As mentioned 

 above, about one thousand species of plants, nearly all of which 

 were native, were found on the inclosed area at the time of or- 

 ganization of the garden. Through a co-operative arrangement 

 entered into with Columbia University, the herbarium of this in- 

 stitution, numbering over six hundred thousand specimens, as well 

 as the library, will be deposited with the garden, and most of the 

 research and graduate work of the university in botany will be 

 carried on in the museum building. The plans of the museum 

 building are such as to offer ample facilities for laboratories in 

 all the divisions of the subject, while the glass houses promise 

 to surpass anything in existence at the present time. The condi- 

 tions of organization are such that a high efficiency for the entire 

 equipment will be at once attained. The establishment of this 

 garden marks an important step in the development of botany in 

 America. 



Perhaps the greatest opportunity for furthering botanical in- 

 vestigation that has existed since the beginning of the science 

 now confronts the American universities in the proposal to estab- 

 lish a botanic garden and laboratory in the tropics. The real 

 value of such an institution may be best understood when it is 

 stated that botany in its present elementary condition, especially 



