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The agricultural garden, the second department comprised in the Institution, sit aa tod about a 

 mile from the centre of Buitenzorg, occupies more than one hundred and fifty acres. The local arrange- 

 ment and the distribution of the plants at once indicate an object exclusively practical. All ia laid out 

 in regular order here ; the roads and the paths cross each other at rigbt angles, the plots which they 

 set off are nearly all of the same size, the plants in each plot are of the same species and of the same 

 age. While in the scientific garden each species had only two representatives, it has here on an aver- 

 ago one hundred. But here the limitations are placed on the kinds of plants, which must be such as 

 are or may become useful to agriculturo or to colonial industries. There are to be found the different 

 species and varieties of the coffee tree, of the tea plant, sugar cane, caoutchouc and gutta-percha trees, the 

 Erythroxylon Coca, which furnishes cocaine, the trees which produce tannin and oils, plants used for 

 fodder, etc. A special part of the garden is reserved for medicinal plants. A chief gardner conducts 

 the work which is carred on by a force of seventy native workers. 



The third garden is located at quite a distance from Buitenzorg, upon the slope of the neighbour- 

 ing volcano, Gedeh. With an area of seventy acres, situated at an altitude of 5,000 feet, it possesses a 

 climate which is marvelously adapted to the cultivation of the flora indigenous to mountains as well 

 as to that of Australia and Japan. A force of a dozen natives works here under the direction of a 

 European gardener. These tlree gardens which together constitute the State Botanical Garden, occupy 

 an area of more than three hundred acres. 



The Museum built opposite the first garden described, is a building about one hundred fifty feet 

 long and comprises a large central hall and two wings. On the lower floor the hall coutains cupboards 

 running all along its walls and glass cases through the centre, in which are kept the botanical collec- 

 tions. Some of the specimens are dried and some are preserved in alcohol. A gallery running the 

 whole length of the upper hall is exclusively occupied by the herbarium. The pressed plants are not 

 kept in portfolios as in Europe but in tin boxes in order the better to protect them against insects and 

 mould, the great enemies of such collections in tropical countries. The number of such boxes exceeds 

 twelve hundred and each box contains one hundred specimens. One of the wings of the building is 

 used as a Museum, and the other for a Library which contains five thousand volumes. 



There are three Laboratories connected with the gardens to which a fourth is soon to be added, 

 for the porsonnel is to be increased by the addition of two new officers, a Botanist and a Chemist, to 

 whom will fall the special task of furnishing by long and patient researches, scientific information to 

 those asking it, regarding the useful plants of the tropics. Behind the Museum in a special building 

 is the Medical Laboratory where a Pharmacist makes researches into the nature of alkaloids and other 

 curious and useful substances found in tropical plants. Of the other two Laboratories, placed behind 

 the nurseries, one is reserved for the use of scholars who come from beyond the seas to study in this 

 place. The room is lighted by five windows in each of which is a large work-table. Cupboards against 

 the wall contain all the necessary implements. There is in it, besides a small collection of the books 

 which are needed, always at hand, in order to save the trouble of going to consult them in the regular 

 Library. It is now proposed also, in order to facilitate the work of the visitor,' to place here an her- 

 barium composed entirely of the plants cultivated in the garden, in order that a rapid identification 

 can be made in any doubtful case without being obliged to have recourse to the general herbarium. 

 The arrangement of this building is simple, and presents the two great advantages of plenty of light 

 and plenty of room. The last point is a very essential one in a warm country where one can endure no 

 crowding, especially in work requiring close research. The third Laboratory is devoted to the use 

 of the Director of the Garden. Close to these buildings are the offices and a photographic and litho- 

 graphic gallery. All of these well equipped buildings show the interest taken in the enterprise both 

 by the Netherlandish Indies and by the mother country. 



The Government oi the Indies has authorized the Director of the Garden to distribute gratuitously 

 the seeds and plants of useful vegetables. In 1888 fourteen hundred packages of seeds and cuttings 

 and young plants were scattered through all parts of the Archipelago. It is especially the garden of 

 agriculture which has been able to supply all of these demands ; but it forms only one part of this 

 scientific organization, and would very badly meet the requirements were it alone. The following 

 statements will give a proof of this. When the remarkable anaesthetic properties of cocaine were 

 discovered, it was only necessary to have recourse to the two plants of the Erythroxylon Coca in the 

 botanical garden to make preparations for a large supply of the article. Enough seeds were gathered 

 from these trees to set out a small plantation in the agricultural garden. When a year later a learned 

 sxcant called the attention of the Dutch government to the necessity of the culture of the plant in 

 Java, they were-able to reply to him that the seeds gathered from the plants in the agricultural garden 

 had already been planted by the thousands. The tree for a long time known as tho producer of gutta 

 percha has been in such domand and was so rapidly destroyed in order to obtain the juice that it was 

 believed to be exterminated and it was even impossible to obtain seeds that it might be propagated 

 again. In the plot devoted to the order Sapotacece in the Buitenzorg garden were found two 

 trees aged about thirty yoars which produced yearly a great quantity of seeds. It was from theso 

 that a young plantation was started in the Garden of agriculture, and thus tho great number of young 

 trees were obtained which were required for the vast plantation established a numbor of years ago, by 

 the Dutch Government, under the auspices of the Garden. The camphor tree of Sumatra, a tree of 

 great value, is exceedingly difficult to grow, first, because it bears very few seeds, and second,, because 

 these seeds very soon lose their germinating power, often being found worthless after a very short 

 voyage. With particular care Teysmann succeeded in raising the trees at Buitenzorg. In 1885 tho 

 plants began to fructify, and now tho garden possesses a young plantation of the camphor trees and a 

 great number of plants can be distributed from there during the next rainy season. 



The researches made up to this time into tho pathology and tho physiology of plants have not 



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