BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. PA. 
No. 21.— Preface to Part IV., Volume 2, of the Bussey 
Bulletin. 
At the beginning of the first volume of the Bulletin will be found 
an account of the origin and objects of the Bussey Institution, 
together with a statement of the resources which were at that 
time available for carrying on scientific investigations. In con- 
sequence of the great fire in Boston in 1872, and of the commer- 
cial crisis of 1873, the income of the Institution was so much 
reduced in the course of a few years that researches became im- 
practicable, and all the remaining resources of the Institution had 
to be applied directly to purposes of teaching. _It has been and 
is the intention of the government of the University, and of the 
teachers specially appointed for the Bussey Institution, to make 
it a thorough and genuine School of Agriculture and Horticulture. 
The whole available income from the Bussey Trust and from tuition 
fees is therefore expended each year for the maintenance of the 
buildings and for instruction. 
The present number of the Bulletin, published at the cost of a 
friend of the Institution, contains papers descriptive of experi- 
ments that were made several years ago, before the closing of 
the laboratory of research and the experimental plant-house, 
together with others relating to subjects which could be studied 
with very simple appliances. ‘The dates attached to the several 
articles denote the times at which they were written. 
The peculiar pecuniary difficulties of the Bussey Institution, 
as compared with the other departments of the University, result 
from the fact that— in accordance with directions given by Mr. 
Bussey in his will — the ‘‘ Bussey Trust Fund” is specially invested 
in real estate, consisting of stores in the best business quarter of 
Boston. It happened that several of these stores were barned in 
1872, and that for rebuilding them there was expended, besides 
the insurance money, not only the whole of the Bussey interest 
in the general investments of the University ($80,000), but also 
$40,000 borrowed at interest from the University Treasury, the 
Corporation not deeming it proper to give to the Bussey Trust 
any share of the proceeds of the public subscription which was 
raised for the purpose of making good the losses which the Uni- 
versity had suffered through the fire. In 1876 there was a serious 
