16 
MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
ing year 210,600 square feet was subsoiied and planted 
with an experimental orchard comprising 68 varieties of 
fruit, was further improved in 1894 by the removal of the 
old and worthless apple trees and grape vines and the laying 
of 1,630 feet of tile; and during the past season many 
additional varieties of fruit were planted, and the walks 
were heavily dressed with cinders and edged with sod. 
Along the principal walks radiating from the center of this 
in closure* have been placed hedges of low growing fruit- 
bearing shrubs, such as Elaeagnus^ P minus pumila^ Ber- 
beris Tfmnhergiij Hibes, etc. 
During the summer, a forcing house, measuring 20x60 
feet, was built in the vegetable garden on the model of the 
usual commercial houses, the walls being double boarded 
and the intervening space filled with cinders, while heat is 
supplied by hot water under pressure. This house has 
been divided by removable partitions into a vegetable 
house and two graperies, one intended for Black Hamburg 
and the other for Muscat of Alexandria, — which requires 
either a higher temperature or a longer period of forcing. 
With these adjuncts, the horticultural instruction of garden 
pupils will be carried on more satisfactorily than heretofore, 
by its extension in a direction in which commercial garden- 
ing is each year making considerable advances. At present, 
167 named species or varieties of fruit plants, and 34 
named vegetables, are in cultivation. 
Owing to the exclusion of seeds from the mail intended 
for foreign countries, except at letter rates, which are pro- 
hibitive, very few seeds were distributed to correspondents 
in 1895, but notwithstanding this the list of accessions 
shows that many seeds were received from Europe, Austra- 
lia, Central America, etc., in exchange for the reports of 
the Garden or as donations. A few consignments of spare 
plants have been made to other institutions in this country, 
from some of which adequate return has been received. 
