108 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hundred acres are wooded with trees and shrubs ; forty-three and 

 a quarter acres, besides the reservoirs, are covered with water in 

 the six lakes ; and of the many meadows the largest contains nine- 

 teen acres. The size, conditions of soil, natural beauty, and cen- 

 tral location are therefore far more favorable and more diversi- 

 fied than in the famous parks and botanical gardens of London, 

 Paris, and Berlin. Only a proper beginning, a scientific and artis- 

 tic organization, and the wise application of the means that are at 

 hand, are needed to combine the useful with the agreeable in the 

 park, and make it also one of the handsomest of botanical gardens. 



One is therefore involuntarily reminded of Schiller's words — 

 " Warum in die Feme schweifen, sieh' das Gute liegt so nah ? " 

 (" Why wander into the far, seeing the good lies so near ? ") when 

 he regards the present movement and efforts to create a " great 

 botanical garden " in certain territory in the northern annex to the 

 city, on the Bronx River, beyond Mount Vernon. A committee of 

 the Torrey Botanical Club is trying and hopes to collect a mill- 

 ion dollars for that purpose. It is given among the purposes to be 

 attained by this garden that it will furnish the city with living 

 plants as demonstration objects for botanical instruction in the 

 medicinal, pharmaceutical, and other institutions. But smaller 

 gardens and houses for the cultivation of tender and half-hardy 

 plants, like the little botanical garden created by Prof. Asa Gray 

 and his pupils in Cambridge, the Arboretum in Boston, and 

 Shaw's Gardens in St. Louis, would be abundantly sufficient for 

 this purpose. Instead of utilizing that which is at hand and 

 near us, we must, in a fashion characteristic of New York, have 

 something new and grand for a botanical garden — a scheme that 

 will bring money among the people, give position and name to 

 politicians, feed the mills of land-speculators and contractors, and 

 therefore find favor everywhere. 



The project is not objectionable in itself. But why not apply 

 it to the already existing Central Park, which has abundant room 

 and all that is needed for the establishment of a complete botani- 

 cal garden, and would gain immensely by it in usefulness and 

 beauty ? With a million dollars all could be provided on the same 

 grand scale that the Kew Garden of London possesses in planta- 

 tions, hot-houses, and botanical museums ; moreover, a large sum 

 of money alone will no more make a great botanical garden than 

 it will a great university. It requires, first of all, the intellectual 

 creators and the scientifically and artistically competent organiz- 

 ers and architects. 



Without reverting in this short article to the history of botan- 

 ical gardens, which may be found in every large encyclopaedia, we 

 will confine ourselves to the discussion of their scientific impor- 

 tance. This is not so much in the drift of modern botanical sci- 



