no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



erto been done in this direction by the arrangement of geograph- 

 ical groups, and which is all that can be done in the future, belongs 

 to the domain of popular demonstration and the instruction of 

 wider circles, not to that of science. It may be of real interest to 

 the garden- visiting public to find Japanese, Chinese, American, or 

 Australian plants, etc., together in greater numbers, and the ad- 

 ministration of the gardens are not to be blamed if they meet this 

 popular desire as practically as they can, only they must not con- 

 ceive that they are thereby solving any scientific problem. 



"The one thing that remains for the directors of botanical 

 gardens, if they would keep up with the progress of science and 

 to make them something more than mere magazines of living 

 plants, is to engage themselves in the questions that concern the 

 variability of organic forms, the influence of changed life-condi- 

 tions on the form, the phenomena of hybridization and reversion, 

 and especially the factors that are conducive to the further devel- 

 opment of the vegetable kingdom and of its history. 



" If we raise the question, in conclusion, of what will be the 

 consequences of the perspective we have defined for the botan- 

 ical gardens, it is hardly to be feared for the smaller gardens, 

 serving principally for the purposes of instruction, that they will 

 be seriously affected by it, for their stock of plants does not at 

 most exceed the present requirements for demonstration. 



" But a prof ounder change concerning the scientific side of 

 botanical gardens may nevertheless be anticipated in the future. 

 The fashionable plants of the trade-gardens and the monotonous 

 forms of certain genera which require whole houses in their aim- 

 less fullness of species do not deserve such a preference ; and the 

 time is at hand for botanical gardens to break with these old tra- 

 ditions and to carry out a stricter selection connected with neces- 

 sary reforms in nomenclature. For this is demanded an expert 

 and energetic administration which recognizes modern problems 

 and knows how to overcome the hindrances that stand in the 

 way." 



What evidently is wanted and should be created in New York 

 is what the botanical gardens of London, Paris, Berlin, and other 

 great cities principally are, a "magazine" of cultivated native 

 and exotic plants, in which botanists and lovers of plants as well 

 as the masses can enjoy themselves and be instructed, and by 

 means of which a perception of and interest in the beauty and 

 endless richness of forms and colors of the plant-world can be 

 awakened and advanced in the populace. The Central Park is 

 eminently adapted for such an establishment, has the right loca- 

 tion for it, abundant space, and therefore all the prerequisites that 

 are needed. Should it seem desirable, in the course of the growth 

 of the city northward, at some later time to have more and new 



