28 
Several meetings were held in the spring and fall 
of 1859, and a code of laws adopted for the use of 
the Society. Attempts were made at various periods 
to raise funds, but there appeared to be great 
apathy shown to the project, and but few persons 
seemed to understand the objects of the Society, 
or could see the benefit to be derived from its 
establishment. Finally, the whole affair came ap- 
parently to an untimely end. It was perhaps well 
that it did so. Had the Society succeeded and 
become established in the grounds appropriated to 
it in the East Park, it could have been but a 
wretchedly small affair, and we should have been 
at the expense and trouble in a very few years of 
moving the whole collection to a more suitable 
locality. The people too, were not prepared for it, 
but in the last twelve or fourteen years, the vast 
mass of travelling Americans, who have visited Eu- 
rope, have brought back with them the knowledge 
of the fact that numbers of such gardens exist every- 
where abroad, and are visited and enjoyed by 
myriads of people, who are not all strangers, 
but who go day after day, and do not tire of 
the ever varying collections. The war through 
which we have passed, and which would have 
proved very disastrous to such an enterprise as 
ours, had it been established in 1859, has been 
of benefit to us in giving the people more en- 
larged ideas in the matter of contributing money, 
and they are now much more willing to come 
forward. The Park, too, has been enlarged to such 
immense proportions, as to offer every facility for 
locating such a garden. In view of all these 
