12 



Henry Augustus Homes. 



of this collection under circumstances so disadvantageous is a matter 

 of great credit to those who have had charge of the increase. Many 

 private gentlemen expend more in the increase of their collections 

 than the State of New York on its library. If it had not been for the 

 donations and exchanges with which this library has been favored, the 

 increase would have been much less than now appears. The Legisla- 

 ture, in addition to the appropriation which it annually makes for the 

 purchase of books, provides for the printing of a considerable number 

 of documents pertaining to the business brought before it, and of all 

 reports made to it. It also publishes volumes of the reports of the 

 Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, and volumes of the docu- 

 ments relating to the history of the colony and the commonwealth, 

 and volumes of the Natural History of the State. These publications 

 are to a greater or less extent distributed by the State library under 

 the authority of the Legislature among the several States and Territo- 

 ries of the Union. In return for this constant stream of benefactions 

 which the great State of New York is pouring into all the other States 

 she is receiving from them, according to their ability the publications 

 which they are issuing. 



What is to a certain extent taking place with the State libraries of 

 the United States is also going on with the great libraries of other 

 countries. A constant interchange of publications is kept up year 

 after year. In this way the State library continues to increase, not 

 only in the publications which are issued in our own country, but in 

 the volumes which are issued by the governments of other countries. 

 It was, I remember, an estimate made by Dr. Homes himself several 

 years ago, that the State library had received from foreign countries 

 books to a value of not less than $50,000. 



I have mentioned this important matter of exchanges in this con- 

 nection because I wished to give due credit to Dr. Homes for building 

 up this mode of increase. I do not wish to imply that Dr. Homes is 

 entitled to the entire credit. The interchange between the States is 

 a natural and spontaneous growth which has sprung up from the cir- 

 cumstances and relations in which the States stood to each other. 

 The foreign exchanges are, in a greater degree, the result of well di- 

 rected effort which a number of individuals put forth. Perhaps the 

 most conspicuous of these was M. Vattemere, who spent many years 

 of earnest endeavor to establish a system of exchanges between the 

 libraries of this country and those in Europe. Ou behalf of the New 

 York State library these endeavors were largely effectual through the 

 support of the late Chancellor Pruyn, who exerted himself freelv and 



