Lee, Frederic Se

A statement concerning the New

York Botanical Garden

[CONFIDENTIAL]

A STATEMENT CONCERNING THE
NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN

PREPARED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE GARDEN
FOR THE INFORMATION OF THE
BOARD OF MANAGERS

APRIL, 1923

[CONFIDENTIAL ]

SINCE assuming the presidency of the New York Bo-
tanical Garden on January 8, 1923, I have endeavored to
make a careful study of the Garden’s present condition
and its future needs and possibilities. In doing this I have
conferred with many members of the Board of Managers,
the Scientific Directors, the Director-in-Chief and other
members of the scientific staff, members of the Women’s
Auxiliary and of the Corporation, other members of the
Garden, and certain individuals who are interested in but
not connected with the institution. I have also visited the
Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, the Department
of Botany of the Field Museum of Natural History,
Chicago, the Arnold Arboretum, Boston, and the Brooklyn
Botanic Garden, and have conferred with their officials.
In all with whom I have talked, without exception, I have
found a cordial readiness, not only to discuss the Garden’s
affairs, but to offer helpful suggestions. I beg to submit
herewith the results of such cooperative study.

The purposes of the Botanical Garden are succinctly and
well stated in Section 1 of the Act of Incorporation, passed
in 1891, as follows: Various
named persons and their suc-
cessors “are hereby constituted and created a body cor-
porate by the name of the New York Botanical Garden,
to be located in the city of New York, for the purpose of
establishing and maintaining a botanical garden and
museum and arboretum therein, for the collection and
culture of plants, flowers, shrubs and trees, the advance-
ment of botanical science and knowledge, and the prosecu-
tion of original researches therein and in kindred subjects,
for affording instruction in the same, for the prosecution
and execution of ornamental and decorative horticulture

Purposes of the Garden

=
re)

and gardening, and for the entertainment, recreation and
instruction of the people.” These words reveal a two-fold
duty on the part of the Garden—a duty to the lay public
and a duty to botanical science. Within the limit of its
resources it has endeavored faithfully to carry out these
purposes.

The Garden’s resources are derived from membership
fees, special contributions, the income of its endowment,
and an annual appropriation by
the city. In these and certain
other respects it is similar to
three other institutions of the city: the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History,
and the New York Zoological Society, which maintains the
Zoological Park and the Aquarium. These institutions,
although they are situated in the City of New York and
look chiefly to the citizens of New York for their financial
support, have made themselves institutions of national
interest and national importance. Certain statistics re-
garding the four institutions follow, the figures being given
in approximate numbers and as of January, 1923.

Comparison of certain
New York institutions

City Annual
Institution Endowment M page Appro- | Expendi-
P priation ture
Metropolitan Museum
of Art $20,840,805|11,390 |$742,922 |$833,000
American Museum of
Natural History 10,000,000] 6,570 | 445,349 | 950,000
New York Zoological
Society 1,265,000] 2,600 | 323,7417] 359,000
New York Botanical
Garden 1,215,213'| 1,600 | 189,808 | 274,189
1 $94,000 borrowed from endowment fund for current expenses.
2 Aquarium $50,226
Zoological Park 264,515
$323,741

This table shows that the Botanical Garden stands at
the bottom of the list in all of the features presented—
endowment, membership, City
appropriation, and annual ex-
penditure. Moreover, I find that it does not hold, among
either the American public or American botanists, the
commanding position of unquestioned leadership which
the three other named institutions hold in their respective
fields. That it ought to gain and maintain such leadership
is widely recognized and cannot, I believe, be rationally
denied. I shall endeavor here to indicate how such a po-
sition may be achieved, and shall discuss, first, the re-
lations of the Garden to the public and, secondly, its
scientific work—although these two features are alike in
importance and constantly interlock.

Position of the Garden

A. The Relations of the Garden to the Public

It should never be forgotten that it is the lay public for
whom, largely, the Garden exists and to whom it must
look, largely, for its support. Its duties to the public
consist, in brief, in affording instruction, recreation and
entertainment by means of its collections of living plants,
shrubs and trees, by “the prosecution and exhibition of
ornamental and decorative horticulture and gardening,”
by its museum, its publications and its lectures. It is
estimated that some six to eight million people pass
through the Garden annually, of whom the majority
probably are mere passing motorists but a considerable
number, especially on Sundays and holidays, spend their
time on foot within the Garden’s grounds observing its
various features. Notwithstanding the large number of
its visitors my inquiries reveal, among intelligent and
influential people who love the beauties of nature and
the things which plant life has to offer, an appalling

3)

amount of ignorance of the Garden and its objects, and a
feeling that it does not offer sufficient attraction to war-
rant their becoming interested in it. Yet it is this in-
telligent, influential mass of the people from whom the
Garden ought to expect its main cooperation and support.
How can their interest be secured ?

First of all, the Garden needs to be improved esthetic-
ally; from all sides I hear this urgently emphasized. In
natural features, in the variety
of its topography and of its soil,
in its combination of woods and open spaces, in its winding
river and its ponds, it is unrivalled. Happily these natural
features have been largely maintained in the transforma-
tion of the four hundred acres, at first into a park and
later into a botanical garden. But we have never made any
large effort to add to the natural features the best that
modern landscape architecture has to give; our activities
toward esthetic development have been restricted,
sporadic, unrelated to one another, and without adequate
advice from those best fitted to know. Our entrances,
our driveways, our walks, our plantations, our combina-
tions of flowers, shrubs and trees, our opportunities for
long vistas and broad reaches, do not offer to those who
are familiar with such landscape features the superior
attractions which compel admiration.

One of the most striking evidences of a growth of the
love of the beautiful in this country during the past
quarter of a century is the in-
creasing interest in private gar-
dens. All over the country, innumerable more or less
formal gardens have been made, large and small, and
garden clubs have been formed, the members of which
meet together for inspecting gardens and discussing
garden problems. The Garden Club of America has
brought together most of these local clubs and has thus

6

Esthetic improvement

Formal gardens

aggregated the widespread interest. It would redound to
the benefit of the New York Botanical Garden if it should
recognize this wide national movement and should en-
deavor to aid it. This could be done by the installation
of formal gardens and special garden features, by frequent
and changing exhibits adapted to interest garden lovers,
and by the giving of information and advice in solving
garden problems. In this direction we have made a
promising beginning in our rose garden, and the success
of our several exhibitions of tulips, gladioli, irises and
dahlias is gratifying and prophetic. But our efforts should
be more comprehensive than these.

For example, there is more or less open space to the
south and east of the Lorillard Mansion, which affords
an excellent opportunity for the
installation of a formal garden,
considerable in extent and with
varied garden effects, without serious interference with
the natural features of the plot. This might require the
removal of the unsightly stables of the Park Department.
The Lorillard Mansion itself, a building of little historical
value, erected during one of the most inartistic periods
in the development of American architecture, was par-
tially burned on March 26. It is now roofless, its upper
stories are gutted, and it must be restored by arrangement
with the City. It could be made a valuable aid in foster-
ing the garden spirit by altering its architecture without
and within, installing in its rooms tasteful furnishings,
offering adequate facilities for the entertainment of
members and other visitors, exhibiting pictures and plans
of public and private gardens, and inducing local garden
clubs to hold occasional meetings there. In such ways
there might be established an esthetic and social center
for bringing to the Garden those who are best fitted to
appreciate and help it.

The Lorillard
Mansion site

Besides such a formal garden of comprehensive scope
the Botanical Garden might well be made serviceable to
garden lovers by constructing
model gardens of smaller size,
and separate garden features adapted to specific needs.
Such might include, for example, gardens for a city back-
yard and for a small suburban home, the possible uses of
vines in decoration, decorative window boxes, ornamental
borders, schemes for combinations of flowers and shrub-
bery, etc. The pregnant suggestion was made by one of
the members and received with enthusiasm by all to whom
it was mentioned that the Botanical Garden reproduce
on a proper scale and exhibit during the coming summer
one of the prize-winning designs for a scheme for the
ornamental planting of a small suburban lot with house
and garage, which was offered in the competition con-
ducted by the Garden Club of America at the recent
Spring Flower Show of the Horticultural Society of New
York. Many other ways might be conceived by which the
Botanical Garden might make its grounds more attractive
and at the same time more serviceable to the public.
In displaying the esthetic possibilities of plant life it ought
to lead, and not follow. But no extension of its features
along these lines should be entered upon without the
advice of a landscape architect of imagination and taste.

Our greenhouse collections are extensive, varied, of
great value and great botanical interest. It is the botanist,
indeed, looking for abundant
species, to whom they chiefly
appeal. They may often, too, attract the untutored and
uncritical in crowds, but to the intelligent layman,
familiar with the art of greenhouse culture and with the
educational and esthetic possibilities of greenhouse dis-
plays, they are disappointing. Many of the houses are
much overcrowded; striking treasures of the collection are

8

Model gardens

Greenhouse collections

hidden from clear view; the educational value of labels
is not adequately utilized; and the horticultural displays
are meager. | am informed, too, by competent authorities
that some of our collections, notably that of orchids, are
seriously degenerating. In all these respects the Botanical
Garden should be a leader, both in methods of greenhouse
culture and in the art of greenhouse display. For this
there are needed a head gardener of wide experience and of
superiority, and a gardening staff of skilled subordinates.

The museum of the Garden contains three collections:
the collection of fossil plants, the systematic collection of
existing plants, and the collection
illustrating the economic uses of
plants. However laudable this conception of a botanical
museum, however valuable the collections, and however
instructive the exhibits, a walk through the museum gives
one, unless he be a botanical specialist, the impression that
the collections consist mainly of dead “specimens,” from
one to another of which the eye wanders without seeing
striking features calculated to rivet the attention. Yet
during the past quarter of a century the museum as a
factor in education has progressed far from the earlier
idea of exhibiting dead “specimens” alone; it shows graphic
and artistic groupings of related things, with representa-
tions of their natural surroundings, making dead objects
appear as living things, full of the beauties and interests
of living nature. The fame of the bird and mammal
groups of the American Museum of Natural History
and of the Egyptian exhibits of the Metropolitan Museum
of Art have spread throughout the country and have
created an interest in such things in thousands of ob-
servers. If we had on our staff a museum specialist,
trained in the museum art of the day and possessing
imagination, he would show us, instead of a few dried
specimens of the cotton plant, a field of growing cotton;

The museum

2

instead of lumps of fossil plants, a picture of how plants
are transformed into coal; instead of lifeless sage-brush,
a bit of an American desert with its cactuses and other
varied flora; a characteristic bit of the Everglades could
be transported from Florida to the Bronx;—the possi-
bilities of such graphic presentation of the enticing
botanical features of the earth are endless.
By such measures for the esthetic improvement of the
Garden not only could it be made a greater force in educa-
tion, but the number of its
friends could be increased and
greater interest in it could be stimulated among the
kind of people upon whom it must depend for support.
There are other ways by which the attainment of these
results could be aided. Just as desirable as special outdoor
horticultural features, are special indoor displays. The
central display house of Greenhouse Range, No. 2, affords
an opportunity for holding during the winter months,
when outwardly the Garden is least interesting, a suc-
cession of flower shows, the exhibits being supplied from
the Garden’s own greenhouses and each show being
devoted to a special group of flowers, with its varieties
and hybrids, or a special floral topic of public interest,
as is done with great success by the Missouri Botanical
Garden. Such displays should be veritable works of art,
esthetically designed, showing the art of floriculture at its
best. If it once became known that such shows were
superior in quality and full of suggestions for flower lovers
and flower growers, they would not lack appreciative
and grateful visitors. Again, the Spring Flower Show of
the Horticltural Society of New York is visited by a
large number of persons—in 1922 by nearly 70,000,
coming from a wide range of the country—and thus
offers an excellent opportunity to reach a large public
interested in plant life. It is an opportunity that ought

Flower shows

10

not to be neglected by the Garden and it could be utilized
by an annual exhibit at the Flower Show adapted to
present some of the best of the Garden’s features. More-
over, the value to the Garden of the lesser flower shows
offered by the Society at the Garden during the summer
months could be greatly increased by the erection of a
simple, but suitable, permanent one-story exhibition
building of tasteful architectural design. There is reason
to believe that the cooperation of the Horticultural
Society in such a building could be secured.

The monthly Journal of the Garden constitutes the one
regular printed means of communication between the
Garden and its members. I find
a widespread feeling that the
Journal is too technical in character and too narrow in
scope to interest readers except botanists and that it thus
fails to attract the great mass of the Garden’s members.
It is a well-known fact that a technical scientist is rarely
capable of writing in a style adapted to lay readers. The
Journal does not need enlargement; but it does need, I
believe, a considerable change in the character of its
contributions and their style of presentation, more and
finer illustrations, and an attractive cover design. With
such changes it might be given a value, now almost
wholly wanting, in creating a continued public interest
in the Garden’s activities. Such changes would probably
require the employment of a lay editor. The full-time
services of such an appointee might be made a valuable
asset for the Garden, not only in editing the Journal,
but in securing in other ways the legitimate publicity of
which the Garden is in much need.

In its Women’s Auxiliary the Garden possesses great
possibilities for aid which have not been adequately
utilized. This is especially true
in developing the esthetic aspect
of the Garden’s grounds. In talking with members of the

The Journal

Women’s Auxiliary

II

Auxiliary | have found them fertile in suggestion and
ready to act in whatever ways their aid would be wel-
comed in raising the Garden’s standard in its relations to
the public. They should be given specific tasks to perform
and specific responsibilities to assume. For example, if
the suggestion to develop the Lorillard Mansion and its
contiguous land as a social and esthetic center should be
approved, why should not the carrying out of the project
be delegated largely to the Auxiliary? Again, since the
Garden Club of America is largely an association of
women, it would seem appropriate that our Women’s
Auxiliary be asked to organize a plan of cooperation
between the Garden and the Club. The Garden as it is
does not invite women’s pride and enthusiasm; the
Garden as it might be could be assured of their warm and
eager and helpful cooperation. In this connection it has
been questioned whether the term “Women’s Auxiliary”
might not advantageously be replaced by one that is
more in accord with the present-day conception of
woman's work.

The Garden, open to the public on all sides and at all
hours of the day and night, has never had adequate police
protection and it frequently suf-
fers from this lack. Fires have
occurred, flowers are picked, blooming plants and bulbs
are dug up, and other depredations on its collections
occur, while assaults on human beings and_ robberies
have been committed within its borders. Policemen are
seen within it only sporadically. Besides its gardeners,
there is maintained by the Garden during the day a
special force of five guards, of whom four patrol the four
hundred acres and one is on a fixed post, but none of
whom have police power. On Sundays and holidays this
force is increased to ten. The night force, also maintained
by the Garden, consists of six men, of whom five guard

Uniformed guards

12

the buildings and one patrols the grounds. This force of
guards, day or night, is insufficient at present and would
be very seriously insufficient if the additional plantations
advocated above should be established. It is doubtful
whether the City will ever be willing to provide a sufficient
police force to prevent lawless acts within the Garden’s
precincts, and in such case we must look to our own
resources for needed protection. We should have a
considerably augmented, organized force of guards,
uniformed and preferably with powers of arrest, if pos-
sible, to patrol the grounds day and night.

B. The Scientific Work of the Garden

The original plan of the Garden very wisely included
among its purposes “the advancement of botanical science
and knowledge, and the prosecution of original researches
therein and in kindred subjects.” In accordance with this
plan original scientific investigation has been fostered
from the first and botanical literature has been enriched
by extensive publications. With certain occasional and
noteworthy exceptions investigation has been chiefly
within the field of systematic botany and plant geography,
and has concerned itself with the collection of plants
growing in this country, the West Indies, South America
and elsewhere, the identification of already known or
hitherto undescribed species, and che preservation of the
specimens for future reference and study. The herbarium
has become one of the noteworthy collections of the world,
and its maintenance and extension should be encouraged
as a legitimate and praiseworthy undertaking of a botanical
garden possessed of broad aims.

But systematic botany, although time-honored, al-
though exclusively dominant in the earlier years of
botanical research, has now become only one of several

13

aspects of a broad and actively pursued science of plant
biology. It represents the usual observational stage in
the evolution of a science; most of the other aspects
employ, in addition to observation, the method of experi-
ment. It deals chiefly with the physical features of the
adult plant, its static features; they deal with its life
processes and its relations to its environment, its dynamic
features. If the New York Botanical Garden is to win a
place of broad leadership in the scientific world it must
share in the advance along other than systematic lines;
it must pursue its investigations into what are now
generally regarded as the more pregnant problems of
botanical science. In its large collections, its varied
topography, and its opportunities for propagation, to-
gether with its freedom from the political influences and
the demand for immediate practical results which might
easily hamper a state-controlled Experiment Station,
the Garden is well fitted to undertake such kinds of
investigation. Its present collections, indeed, afford
already abundant material for research into certain prob-
lems other than taxonomic. Most of the newer problems,
which are of varied nature, may be included, in general,
within the scope of plant physiology and plant pathology.

It has been suggested that one very important line of
research within the sphere of plant physiology which the
Garden might profitably under-
take and in which little advance
has heretofore been made, relates to the nutrition and
growth of forest and ornamental trees. Data acquired on
this topic would contribute to the subject of plant nutri-
tion in general, and specifically to the problem of the
maintenance of the Garden’s own plantations and of
city shade trees. The problems of plant life in relation
to the chemistry and biology of the soil offer almost

Plant physiology

14

endless opportunities for investigation. The Garden is
about to undertake one very promising research into
some of these problems of trees, namely, the study of the
hemlocks in relation to their environmental conditions,
both at the Garden itself and simultaneously at Ithaca,
Syracuse and New Haven. The physico-chemical relations
of plant protoplasm and the plant cell, the topic of hered-
ity in plant life, and many other physiological problems,
are crying for investigation.

Plants are perhaps as much subject to disease as are
human beings and the lower animals, and the economic
aspects of their maladies are
doubtless of as great importance
to the human race as are its own physical ills. Plants,
like men, are attacked by insects, fungi and bacteria;
they are subject to nutritional disturbances, malforma-
tions and injuries; their organs behave improperly; and
their physiological processes go wrong. In recent years
the experimental science of plant pathology has achieved
a prominent place within botanical science. While much
that has been learned so far concerns specific plant dis-
eases and methods of protecting plants from them, plants
offer peculiar opportunities for the study of the broader
aspects of disease processes in general, processes which
are exhibited by both plants and animals alike. Such
topics include susceptibility, immunity, the interrelations
of host and parasite, etc., and the belief is now growing
that the experimental investigation of such topics in
plants will throw light upon the disease processes of
animals and man. With the various prominent medical
institutions of New York now endeavoring to make the
city a great center for medical investigation, it seems fair
to urge that the Botanical Garden be enabled to contrib-
ute a share in this work of vital importance to mankind.

Plant pathology

T5

The extension of the scientific work of the Garden along
these experimental lines related to the life processes of
plants would require the ap-
pointment to the scientific staff
of at least one physiologist, one
experimental pathologist, and one chemist. These should
be men of high scientific standing, promise and vision,
capable of originating and pursuing successfully their
various .researches, and they should be allowed freedom
of action. They should be aided by competent subordi-
nates, both trained persons of scientific promise and less
highly trained laboratory assistants.

One of the duties of a public institution in which scien-
tific research is prominent among its activities is to offer
opportunities for research to
others than the immediate mem-
bers of its staff. It is to the credit of the Garden that in
the past it has recognized this duty and has placed its
facilities at the disposal of many persons who have come
to it from other institutions for the purpose of investigat-
ing specific problems of systematic botany. With the
proposed extension of its scientific work its attractiveness
for special investigators ought to be increased many fold.
If the Garden should become known as a place in which
the highest types of experimental investigation into the
insistent botanical problems of the day could be freely
pursued under stimulating leaders, it would have no lack
of special investigators. It would bring workers, not only
from this country, but from European countries—workers
who would spread a knowledge of the Garden among the
world’s botanists and add to its prestige. In doing this
it would contribute both to the development of a broad
botanical science and to the broad education of the
younger botanists who are destined to take the places of
those who must ultimately retire from active work.

16

Personnel needed for
experimental work

Special investigators

For the prosecution of such experimental work the
Garden does not now possess adequate quarters; addi-
tional laboratory space would
be required. The fundamental
requisite of laboratory rooms is abundant light, and
preferably light from the north. A laboratory for experi-
mental botany requires also greenhouse facilities imme-
diately at hand. The original architectural plan of the
museum building included the construction of a wing
extending from each end of the present building toward
the north and the completion of a quadrangular court
by means of a fourth structure extending east and west
and connecting the north ends of the two wings. This
plan contemplated the placing of all the scientific work
under one roof. I believe that there are serious objections
to the inclusion in such a building of the quarters for
experimental work. In the first place, all the rooms facing
the court would have inadequate lighting; the east and
west exposures of the two wings would not be the best;
and the structure on the north side of the court would
offer its best facilities on the north side only. In the
second place, greenhouses would have to be built on the
roof of the building, and, although this would be possible,
it is doubtful whether it would be the best location during
the rigors of our winters. In the third place, both the
herbarium and the library are even now hampered by
reason of inadequate space, and need, moreover, addi-
tional provision for continual future growth; and the
proposed extension of the museum can only be made
possible by enlarged quarters. It may, therefore, well
be considered whether it would not be wise to have the
wider vision and reserve the museum building for her-
barium, library and museum, together with the working-
rooms required for their maintenance, and for the admin-
istrative offices. In such case an additional building

Laboratory

17

would be needed for all the varied requirements of the
proposed experimental work, and such a building might
most profitably be located in close proximity to the
propagating houses, which would afford abundant green-
house facilities. With the inclusion in the laboratory
building of a well selected reference library the slight
disadvantage of removal from the main library could
easily be compensated.

It is a regrettable fact that in the past the Garden has
not been markedly generous to its scientific staff in the
matter of salaries. The following
table presents the salaries now
paid by the four representative New York institutions,
previously mentioned.

Higher salaries

SALARIES
Title of Officer pa psi Zoological | Botanical
Museum Museum Park Garden
Director $11,000 | $9,500 $10,000
Assistant
Director 7,500 7,000! $6,000? 5,000
Head Curator None None None 5,000
Curator 6,000 5,300 — 6,000 3,500 —
5,500 4,000
Associate
Curator None 2,640— None 2,040 —
4,000 2,700
Assistant Curator|| 2,200— | 1,992— None None
3,750 3,140
1 Executive Secretary. 2 Assistant to Director.

It is here seen that, with the exception of the Director-
in-Chief, the salaries paid by the Garden are the lowest

18

in the list. Yet many of the members of the staff are as
worthy and as eminent in their professional standing as
are those of the other institutions. I present below the
salary list of Columbia University, which may be con-
sidered as a fair criterion of recompense for service not
unlike that performed by the members of the Garden staff.

Officer Salary
ESOT Sis oe. «kb COMMTIEAL Buh G steer Sei Wes fal ae av $6000;—-8000
Prasociate Professors 64g) 5.4 s+) ees «ws @) ©4500°— 5000
mesistant. Professors je 66 ww. < « ¢ »'.” 3000 — 3600
PORERUIGCOLS: <<) bea eaeia im, Jali. vy, se © 6 2). ..2000'=' 2400
BASSISUCINLG: 9 ede cate. ley my dhe iw ok Sie, LOOO =-1200

In very recent years many colleges and other institu-
tions have increased the salaries of their staffs in accor-
dance with the increased cost of living, but it is evident,
I think, that the Garden has not met its moral obligations
in this matter and that a reexamination and readjustment
of salaries is a great desideratum.

The matter of salaries is clearly linked with another
matter of moral obligation, namely, that of pensions. A
pension system has now become
almost a sine qua non of institu-
tions which encourage long and faithful service from their
employees, and the Garden has never made any provision
for the old age of those who have helped to make it. Some
of our staff are now advanced in years and, with inade-
quate compensation, have given the best of their life’s
energies to the service of the Garden; and the process is
being repeated by others now younger. A careful study of
this subject should, I believe, be made, and a pension
system be devised which would remove this cause of
opprobrium.

In certain other ways the Garden might be materially

19

Pensions

assisted. Small funds insuring a constant appropriation
for the following purposes are desirable: to insure the
proper maintenance of the pro-
posed additions to the plantations,
to maintain the herbarium properly, to assist the work of
exploration, to provide for the necessary constant increase
of the library, to provide additional lectures, and to
maintain properly the proposed new laboratories.

There are certain features of Garden procedure and
Garden policy that have been brought to my attention
from different sources, changes in
which might conceivably re-
dound to economy, efficiency
and the prestige of the institution, while not requiring
materially increased expenditures. For example, it is
believed that greater economy in the purchase of supplies
might be secured by a readjustment of the functions of the
administrative offices at the Bronx and of the Treasurer’s
office, in accordance with a more modern and more
efficient system of financial administration. The Garden,
too, might advantageously cultivate closer relations of
amity with other botanical institutions of the country—
our position at present is one that savors of isolation.
This applies not only to scientific institutions, but, as
already indicated, to garden clubs and other organizations
of less technical character. The Garden should assume a
place of cooperation and leadership in all the large
botanical movements of the country. The members of
our scientific staff should be encouraged to attend, to a
greater extent than at present, the meetings of the national
botanical societies and to report there the results of their
investigations. The Garden could well afford to reimburse
its representatives for travelling expenses incurred in
such activities.

Other needs of the Garden

Changes in Garden pro-
cedure and policy

20

C. The Need of Increased Funds

It is obvious that most of the advances suggested above
would involve the Garden in increased expenditures, and
all together would require markedly increased funds. It is
not probable that the City can be induced at present to
increase materially its annual appropriation, and in such
case recourse must be had to private gifts. In this con-
nection it should be borne in mind that increasing the
attractiveness and the value of the Garden to the lay
public is one of the surest ways of aiding, not only in the
extension of these features, but in the promotion of scien-
tific work. Of the suggested features some might be most
readily secured through special gifts, others, requiring
annual expenditures, through added endowment. I
venture to give below estimates of the cost of the several
items, as they seem to belong naturally to the one or the
other of these two groups. While differences of opinion
may be expected to arise in regard to the correctness of
these estimates, in making them I have had the advice of
various professional men, presumably competent in their
respective fields of interest.

In the group of special gifts I would place the following

with estimates of their cost. Special gifts
amoratory building...) 65 2 es $100,000
Equipment for laboratory building. . . . . . . 15,000
Formal garden near Lorillard Mansion . ... . 20,000
Exhibition House for summer flower shows .. . 25,000
West wing of Museum Building and equipment . 300,000
Comprehensive plan of development of grounds . ?

The following list of items, together with estimates of
their expected annual require-
ments, comprises those proposed
improvements which might best be taken care of
through added endowment.

Increased endowment

PAA

Pension system for younger members of staff . . . $5,000

Increased salaries to existing staff . ...... 25,500
Salaries to additional members of scientific staff . 52,000
Annual appropriation for added scientific work . 2,500
Additional maintenance of laboratory .... . 6,000
Additional maintenance of plantations .... . 6,000
Additional maintenance of museum ..... . 5,000
Exploration (2 MEM i) sig. 5,000
Additional herbanurd supplies ates) 650
Library additions .. . Jie Gane 2,000
Added publications by the Garden PME AS ics 2,500
Lectures) % Sh Get 1,000
Wages of additional: stati of Gaifornied eure as 5,000
Unforseen expenditures required in proposed
LM OTOVEMIEMUESs 3. 2. alc eae ae os clean eae 6,850
MOG al rp clicg nays. sk ge Made ape ee te UE ne a OOO
Additional endowment required for above. . . . $2,500,000

The endowment of the Garden at its beginning was
$258,845. In the twenty years that elapsed between 1898
and 1918 this was increased by the addition of $300,000.
Since then the fortunate gift of the Sage Fund has been
the chief means of raising the endowment to its present
figure of approximately $1,200,000. During this period
of twenty-five years the Garden has not asked the public
for any large increase in its funds, either in endowment
or in special gifts. Is not the time now ripe to make
such an appeal—an appeal to enable the Botanical Garden
of the City of New York to assume its rightful place of
leadership?

FREDERIC S. LEE

22

w York Botanical Garden Library

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