tion 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
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