Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/659

Rh professional botanist, but in the leisure hours of a very busy physician's life. In these days, when there is some tendency to sneer at u amateur scientists," it is well to remember the work of men like George Engelmann.

To completely understand the work of the St. Louis Academy of Science to-day, something must be known of two other institutions—the Washington University and the Missouri Botanical Garden.The three institutions are closely related in their personnel and in their work. The reason for their mention at this point is that the garden is largely due to George Engelmann. Henry Shaw was a wealthy business man of St. Louis; he lived in the city, but had a country home and a great property in land outside of the then city limits. Mr. Shaw enjoyed country life and developed a garden, which even then was an attractive place of resort. A friend of Engelmann, the latter was able to direct the rich man's taste into profitable channels; the result was that Shaw's Garden was really a botanical garden. From it has grown an institution of the greatest importance and interest—the Missouri Botanical Garden. It is organized in accordance with the terms of Mr. Shaw's will. The garden proper consists of several acres, upon which stand the old country home now used as the residence of the director, and the former city house of Henry Shaw, which was in accordance with the terms of the will removed from its former site and rebuilt exactly, and which is now used as an office. In this latter building is the botanical library—one of the best in America; two particularly interesting sections of it are the pre-Linnæan and the Linnæan libraries. Here, too, is the Engelmann herbarium, containing rich series of important type specimens. This valuable donation to the garden was made by Dr. George J. Engelmann, son of the botanist. A graceful thing done by Mr. Shaw shortly after Engelmann's death was the republication, in one quarto volume of 508 pages and 103 full-page plates, of all of Dr. Engelmann's published botanical work. The garden also has now in its possession the Engelmann library and all the original notes and botanical sketches made by Dr. Engelmann. The mass of these notes is enormous. Dr. Trelease, to whose care they are intrusted, found twenty thousand slips which, bound up, composed sixty quarto volumes. The garden includes among its features an arboretum of the first grade, greenhouses where experimental work is conducted, experimental gardens for fruits and vegetables, and a Bible garden. This last, an idea carried out in Mr. Shaw's lifetime and still maintained, aims to illustrate the plants mentioned in the Bible. An excellent feature in the work of the garden is the training school for practical gardeners. Six young men are here on scholarships, following a definite course of study; they live upon the place and