36 
of the college are also greatly interested and 
are bringing in plants from various sections of 
the country. 
Mr. Merrill has recently written that Mr. 
Prank Meyer is now in northern China and that 
he is planning a botanical-agricultural explora- 
tion of southern China. We trust that Mr. Meyer 
will make the college a center for his work. We 
shall be glad to cooperate in any ways which may 
be open to us. 
How that we have the herbarium started we 
feel that we should establish in connection with 
it an arboretum where we could grovr and study 
many of these interesting and economic plants of 
South China. We now have land on which this 
could be done. Considerable effort has been made 
during the past four years to drain and improve 
the fertility of this land. We believe we could 
now bring plants in and establish them here with 
promise of success. We have placed on our agri- 
cultural budget for this year, under normal devel- 
opment, an item of |35o gold for this purpose. The 
idea is approved in general but the college is un- 
able to appropriate funds for anything except 
things imperative, such as staff and general ex- 
penses. If we undertake this work we should have 
some promise of a yearly ap-oropriation of this 
amount for some years so that we shall be able to 
assure the conservation and continuation of the 
effort. 
Our estimated budget for #350.00 gold per year 
isas follows: 
' Salary of native plant collector |l?5.00 
Travelling expenses 50.00 
Purchase of plants 100.00 
Labor and sundries on ground 75.00 
1350.00 gold 
We have thought that you would be especially 
interested in this proposition and that it is an 
undertaking which should be begun at once in view 
of Mr. Meyer's Irotanical-agricultural explorations. 
For example, if we had funds in hand we should send 
with Mr. Meyer the native plant collector we pro- 
pose to employ and train for this work. He could 
secure duplicates of everything Mr. Meyer gets 
and we could establish them here on our own campus 
where you could refer to them later if you so de- 
sired. Our system of classification and number- 
ing should be such as to enable you to call on us 
Decexnber 31, 1917. 
