Botanical Garden

a term applied to grounds set apart for the express cultivation of plants from various parts of the world. It is impossible, of course, to establish in any one garden conditions under which all plants, from rainy regions to rainless deserts, and from the Arctic Circle to the tropics, will grow and flourish; but by the assistance of hothouses for tropical vegetation it has been found practicable to rear as many as 12,000 to 15,000 species in a garden situated in a temperate climate. Botanical gardens usually include as many different kinds of soil, as sand, gravel, loam, muck, with as many different kinds of exposure from northern shade to southern slope, as it is possible to secure. Steam heat and glass roofs have made it possible to imitate a tropical climate the year around. Pools for aquatic plants may be either hot or cold, adding greatly to the variety of plants possible. A botanic garden may be made to serve an important educational purpose, by showing the dependence of different kinds of plants on particular sets of conditions. Some plants grow only on a limestone rock; others only in mud at the bottom of a pool; others must have no water at all. Groups of plants may also be made according to their value for medicine or food or clothing, and again as to whether they yield starch or oil or resin. The oldest of the important gardens in this country is perhaps the Shaw's Garden at St. Louis. Others in connection with the universities of Harvard and Cornell should be mentioned. The New York Botanical Garden is acquiring reputation. The Smithsonian grounds in Washington contain many choice specimens both of shrubbery and of trees. Many of our public parks are also notable. England, France, Germany, Holland, and Sweden have gardens.

The Elder Pliny describes a garden at Rome about 70 A. D. in which a number of medicinal plants were grown. In fact the earlier botanical gardens appear to have been devoted to medicinal herbs. The old monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland, had a garden as early as 1020, chiefly of medicinal species. A garden is mentioned at Venice in 1330; at Bologna in 1568; Leyden, 1577; Leipsic, 1579; Montpelier, 1596; Paris, 1597; Strasburg, 1620; Oxford, 1632; Upsala, 1667. The Garden of Plants at Paris is one of the most celebrated. Perhaps two or three hundred botanical gardens in all now deserve the name. In many respects botanic gardens may be considered the forerunners of agricultural experiment stations.

See Kew; Shaw'S Garden; Bartram