REPORT OF FEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 
AlipOU DAY PROCLAMATION. 
State of New Jersey. 
Executive 1 Iepartment. 
In accordance with established custom and the authority vested in me by 
joint resolution of Legislature, approved February twenty-first, one thousand 
eight hundred and eighty-four, I, Franklin Murphy, Governor, do hereby 
designate Friday, the seventeenth day of April, as Arbor day in the State 
of New Jersey, and I hereby recommend that the teachers and pupils of our 
public and private schools, the faculties and students of our colleges and of 
our State schools and the people generally, do devote the lay to the planting 
of trees, shrubs and dowers and the bolding of such exercises as will tend to 
stimulate our love for nature and broaden our knowledge of the value of trees. 
Although it is not specially enjoined by statute, it is entirely appropriate 
that with the study of trees be coupled lessons on the value of our native birds 
and the importance of preserving hem. I therefore further recommend that 
exercises relating to the birds as well ns to the trees be included in each 
programme. 
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great 
Seal of the State to be affixed, at Trenton, this thirtieth day of March, one 
thousand nine hundred and three. 
FRANKLIN MURPHY. 
By the Governor: 
S. D. Dickinson, 
S ‘ecretary of State. 
Mr. S. R. Morse, Curator of the Museum: 
Dear Sir —I wish to congratulate you on your great success in organizing a 
good museum of the natural productions of the State. Of course all departments 
are not yet started, but in the group of birds the collection is a good one both in the 
character of the specimens and in the number of species represented. New Jersey 
began the formation of a museum so much later than many of the other States, 
over fifty years later than New York, that she needs all the aid possible to 
enable her to compete with them. While the State should do all it can to protect 
the birds from all needless destruction, the educational value of a complete State 
collection of all the species in all their variation of plumage for sex. season anil 
age is so important that there should be no hindrance to the formation of such 
a collection. 
There probably ought to be a special enactment for the purpose. 
Useful birds, and practically all land birds are useful, should be protected so 
that their numbers will not lie decreased either for sport, fashion or food. 
The number needed for a State collection is so small and the utility of such a 
museum is so great that there should be no question that the balance is all on 
the side of its formation. 
In the other groups of nature there will probably be no need of special legisla¬ 
tion ; but, if needed, laws should be enacted. New Jersey should have as fine 
and complete a museum in all departments as any of the States of the Union, 
and there should be no further delay. 
Yours most truly. 
AUSTIN C. APGAR. 
