Reprinted from The Minnesota Magazine for October, 1895 



Botanic Gardens 



D. T. Mac Dougal 



THE TERM botanic garden in its broadest sense is used to 

 designate a plot of ground on which is grown a collection 

 of plants, which so far as possible under the prevailingclimatic 

 conditions, should represent as many of the principal forms of 

 vegetation as is possible.. It is obviously impossible to bring 

 together at one point on the earth's surface more than a frac- 

 tion of the living plants of the globe, since the number known 

 toexist at the present time is nearly half a million species. The 

 largest collection of plants which it has been possible to grow 

 in one locality is that of the botanic garden of Paris with itss 

 fifteen thousand species. In consequence of this limitation, due 

 chiefly to substratum and climate, the living plants are gener- 

 ally supplemented by prepared specimens of fossil and contem- 

 poraneous forms, in such manner as to presentmorecompletely 

 the vegetation of the globe. Furthermore the living plants; 

 h o uld be so assembled as to demonstrate the descent and re- 

 lationships of the several important groups, distributiora over 

 climatic and geographic zones, as well as their principalbiolog- 

 ical adaptations to the factors which surround their natural 

 habitats. 



In addition to this strictly natural method of treatment, it 

 is also customary to illustrate by groups, the forms which have 

 become of special interest because of their food furnishing,, tex- 

 tile yielding, medicinal properties, or other economic value. At 

 the present time the economic feature has become subordinated 

 to the other — biologic aspects of plant life in garden organiza- 

 tion, although it is t.o the first named feature that these insti- 

 tutions owe their origin. 



The first botanic gardens vvere formed by the Benedictine 

 monks of Italy in the ninth century, and were devoted entirely 

 to the growing of "simples". This continued to be their func- 



