Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/209

Rh of living plants has increased from a scant 2,000 to 10,000 species or varieties; the decorative features have each year grown in variety and attractiveness; the library has increased from less than 1,000 volumes to over 36,000 books and pamphlets; the herbarium has increased from a little over 60,000 sheets of specimens to about 400,000 sheets; a course of instruction for garden pupils has been put in operation, which has trained a number of the best of the young men now engaged in horticulture—in the broad sense—in the country; the school of botany, though it has not had many students, has given botanical instruction to such of the undergraduates of Washington  University as wished to take up this study, either as pure botany or in connection with medicine or engineering, and has prepared for the Doctor's degree in the university several candidates whose theses have reflected credit on the institution as well as on themselves; and, during the laying of what must be conceded as a solid foundation for the more rapid development and greater productiveness of the next period of the garden's history, time has been found by the garden staff for the performance of sufficient research work in various departments of botany and horticulture to have caused its recognition as an establishment for this purpose.

During the laying of the foundation for the greater productiveness of the garden, sight has not been lost for a moment of the desirability of maintaining it as an attractive resort for the lovers of the beautiful, and it may be said that considerably over 100,000 persons visited it last year—some 43,000 on the two open Sundays. As is always the case in large places, detail is often lost in mass effect, or the seeker after detail sees nothing of broad treatment; and in the administration of the institution there is not a day which does not bring to the director more dissatisfaction with either general effect or detail than is