PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 55 



harbour from the flat and the natural amphitheatre which 

 surrounds it, and with such display of flowers as can be 

 seasonably maintained, after the necessary demands of the 

 public departments for cut flowers in season are satisfied. 



Then the average citizen, walking through his botanic 

 garden, enjoys himself. He chats with his friend, he reads 

 his book, he contemplates the changing scene of landscape, 

 observes the manners and customs of his fellow men, or he 

 rests, — simply approximates as far as he can to the ideal 

 of "doing nothing," and thereby relieves jaded mind and 

 body. Or, he takes his walking exercise along the paths 

 or across the lawns, imbibing health by activity under 

 pleasant extraneous conditions. 



That is how the majority of visitors to a botanic garden 

 occupy themselves. They take their botany mildly. Some 

 of them imbibe a little in spite of themselves, and, like M. 

 Jourdain in "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme " say, 

 Vive la science ! 



A small minority of the public are seriously interested 

 in plants from the botanic or scientific aspect. The number 

 is increasing, year by year, and will increase, as facilities 

 are given for teaching the subject, but let us be quite 

 honest, and admit that the vast majority of the taxpayers 

 are not botanists at all. 



We in New South Wales have to work out our own 

 problems, some of them the result of our special environ- 

 ment, and hence the experience of other countries can only 

 help us as a guide, and we cannot slavishly follow models, 

 however excellent. 



So far as the Botanic Gardens are concerned, most people 

 do not understand that it consists of living plants (Gardens 

 and Parks) and dead plants (Herbarium and Museum). By 

 far the majority of plants which reached a botanical 



