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Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/348

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344
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

where many of the visitors, especially among the children, have never seen the common food-plants outside of a grocery store, and have never seen any of the fiber and medicinal plants at all.

Aside from the labeled plantations, which in reality constitute an out-of-doors museum, and the conservatory collection, no museum will be developed in connection with the garden. The close proximity of the Central Museum building of The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences makes a separate static exhibit by the garden unnecessary, for the plans of the museum include an extensive botanical section.

On account of the ample facilities already offered in Greater New

Fig. 8. Economic Section of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The first two rows of beds contain food and fodder plants; the third row, medicinal plants; the fourth row, condiments and relishes; the fifth row, fiber plants. August 14, 1911.

York for work in systematic botany, no attempt will be made to develop a systematic center at the Brooklyn Garden. Only such a herbarium will be assembled as represents the local flora, as the needs of other departments indicate, and as the proper naming and labeling of the collections makes necessary. Investigations will be confined to other subdivisions of the science than taxonomy, such as physiology, pathology, morphology, experimental evolution and phases of economic botany. Annual city appropriations for the maintenance of such an institution as a botanic garden are, of course, justified only by the service which the garden can render to the city. In this connection it may be stated that it was the wish of those instrumental in securing the estab-