75 
arrangement, but involves ecological rather than taxo- 
nomic grouping. The functions of the garden may be 
purely economic, along the lines of introduction, testing 
and breeding of useful plants, or it may be something 
in the nature of a living museum with due provision made 
for plants of scientific interest. It may be restricted to 
some special types, such as conifers, drug plants or 
plants native to the region, and there are all grades in 
such gardens. The difficulty is to draw up a definition 
that will cover them all. The Brisbane Botanic Gardens 
with the portion of the domain taken over in 1916 have 
an area of about 50 acres. The State has outgrown the 
stage where such a piece of land is adequate for all the 
various demands that might be put on them. It is no 
longer enough to import plants and distribute them to 
interested persons without considering their possibilities 
as weeds or carriers of disease. Nor in an already small 
and well-furnished garden is there much room for further 
planting. Plant breeding, too, requires a skilled staff 
and adequate testing grounds. Experimental work on 
the use of fertilizers and control of disease is better done 
elsewhere. Much of the work originally done in the 
Gardens, or perhaps entirely neglected, has passed to the 
Department of Agriculture, of which the establishment 
was formerly a part. There is more and better . investi- 
gatory work being conducted all over the State in intro- 
duction, selection, breeding, weed eradication, disease 
control and methods of cultivation than could ever be 
done in even a large botanic garden. We might regard 
the Gardens as the pioneer institution that helped to 
make these activities possible. 
All this suggests, perhaps, that the day of the Botanic 
Gardens is past, and that the needs of the population can 
be catered for by specialist organizations such as the 
Forestry Department, the Department of Agriculture, and 
the C.S.I.R.O., leaving little more than the cultivation of 
ornamentals and the maintenance of an educational 
pleasure garden. TsTo doubt many of their functions have 
been shorn awav, but even if they lose all of their economic 
functions, the Gardens still hold a very special place in 
the cultural and recreational life of the community. Thev 
contain collections of plants, native and introduced, 
ornamental and otherwise, that give students, visitors 
and the general public an opportunity to study in the 
living state the species that can be grown in the country. 
