PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 53 



Dublin, Kew and Sydney, the Empire's four oldest gardens, 

 require respectful treatment. 



The Scientific or Biologic Element. — Dr. Britton shows 

 how the relations of the scientific department to the 

 economic and aesthetic are intertwined. He adds, 



"The research work of the scientific department: should be 

 organized along all lines of botanical enquiry, including taxonomy 

 morphology, anatomy, physiology, and palaeontology, and the 

 laboratories should afford ample opportunities and equipment for 

 their successful prosecution." 



He makes reference to the sequence of botanical families 

 in a "botanical system" so far as the arrangement of 

 plants is concerned. Each garden must, however, work 

 out this problem for itself. Speaking for Sydney, I may 

 say that I have more than doubled the number of special 

 beds, each devoted to a family in the garden. It is not 

 likely that I can do much more in this direction, for the 

 reason that the claims of landscape must ever be borne in 

 mind, and do all we can, the arrangement of families must, 

 from the nature of things, be more or less formal. Then 

 the strict sequence of families as a rule would result in 

 horticultural failure. Proximity of families means, as a 

 rule, uniformity of horticultural conditions, and every 

 practical man knows that allied families may require very 

 different cultural conditions. So that the theoretical plan 

 of the lecture-room, and the plan as capable of being effect- 

 ively carried out in the garden, may be two different 

 things. 



A remark by Britton — 



" The scientific possibilities of a botanical garden are the greater 

 if an organic or co-operative relationship exists between it and a 

 university, thus affording ready facilities for information on other 

 sciences," 

 I cordially endorse, and much can be done in Sydney in 



