to have been spared from the force without neglect of some essential. Yet, though over-work and a permissible if entirely undesirable neglect of details of convenience in use, but not of preservative care, have been necessary, each of the higher employees has every year found time to do something worth doing in the field of investigation. The achievements, it is true, are neither as many nor as great as the workers or the management of the establishment would have wished them to be, but considering the fact that the garden has been in course of transition from the pleasure grounds of a gentleman to a scientific establishment, and that what has been done has been carefully done, they are not insignificant or unworthy, and each of the thirteen annual reports on the institution thus far printed contains at least one scientific publication of original results, of permanent interest to botanical workers. What will come of the staff of capable investigators that it may shortly be expected to gather together, is a matter of conjecture only—but the conjecture refers rather to the success with which men may be selected than to the opportunities that they will enjoy for the most earnest and serious application of which they are capable.
Research is coming to be recognized as of greater value for the practical development of our natural resources, with the passage of every year. The investigator sometimes sees in his subject only a problem that he must solve whether its solution can ever be of value or not. Sometimes he appears to be so constituted that the suspicion that it can result in anything useful is deterrent to him. Sometimes his chief interest lies in the very possibility of its utilization. But, in any case, no fact well made out and properly correlated is valueless, and the results of the most unpractical of discoveries are often utilized in commerce or in the arts with surprising promptness. While the research thus far carried on at the garden has been dictated largely by consideration of the needs of botanical science alone, or the personal interest of the investigator, I should not like to close this reference to it without mentioning that the studies of one of the intructors in the school of botany, Dr. von Schrenk, have taken the direction of the causes and means of prevention of the decay of timber, on which, under the authority of the National Department of Agriculture, he has done work which has brought him merited scientific recognition, while at the same time its practical results in the saving to railroads and other large users of timber already promise very large financial returns to the community at large.
While its own staff is, therefore, reasonably certain to utilize the facilities of the garden in an ever growing degree for the performance of research work, the results of which are and will always be an ample
