PEESIDEXTIAL ADDEESS. 21 



Henry Shaw, the founder of the great Missouri Garden 

 and of the Shaw School of Botany, was in his early life a 

 Sheffield cutler. He migrated to the States in 1819 and 

 by his energy and ability ere long amassed a large fortune 

 and retired from business whilst still in the prime of life. 

 During a visit to the old country, in the year of the 1851 

 Exhibition, he spent some time in examining the more 

 notable private gardens in England, and according to his 

 own statement it was while walking though the grounds 

 of Chatsworth that the idea first occurred to him to lay out 

 a private garden in his own city of S. Louis on similar but 

 less ambitious lines. In 1857 the Missouri Gardens were 

 first planned on suggestions furnished him by Engelmann, 

 Hooker, Decaisne, Alexander Braun, and other great 

 botanists whose opinions he invited. In 1859 Shaw, 

 at Hooker's advice, purchased the great herbarium of 

 Professor Bernhardi of Erfurth and for the remainder of 

 his life, indeed up to the day of his death in 1889, the 

 garden which he had created, in the midst of which he 

 lived and in which he now lies buried, was his constant 

 care. 



From the general plan of the garden you will readily 

 understand the principle on which it is laid out. With 

 the arboretum it forms a right angled triangle about 45 

 acres in extent, not including the adjoining meadows, 

 which latter, though at present let, are to remain available 

 for further extension of the gardens. The Shaw School 

 of Botany, situated close at hand was also founded by 

 Shaw and endowed with i>1000 a year, and capital 

 yielding a like sum was devoted to the support of a 

 special Professor of Botany in the School, the professor 

 being also director of the Garden. In addition to 

 the green-houses, store-houses, and palm-house, and 

 necessary out-buildings, a large herbarium and museum 



