A. Dr. Gray’s Will

Appendix.

Dr. Gray in his will left to the herbarium the proceeds of all his copyrights. His strong belief in the importance of a large and well-kept herbarium, as an establishment indispensable not only to the development of botanical studies at Harvard but also to the diffusion throughout the whole country of a knowledge of its flora, is shown by this bequest, and also by the active efforts he was constantly making in its behalf during his life and by the personal sacrifices to which he cheerfully submitted, that the herbarium might profit. Some of the difficulties in the development of his cherished project will already have suggested themselves to the reader of these pages. Others may be touched upon briefly here.

The reputation of Dr. Gray at home and abroad naturally served to draw to the herbarium large numbers of specimens, and the number was increased by the purchases which he contrived to make from time to time, either from his own scanty means, or from the occasional gifts of friends. The storing of his large and valuable collections in the small house in the garden where he lived was attended by so much danger of destruction by fire that he offered to present the collection to Harvard University, if a suitable building for its reception were provided; and, greatly to his relief, his herbarium was transferred in 1864 to the new fire-proof building, for whose construction twelve thousand dollars were given by his liberal friend, Mr. Nathaniel Thayer.

If Dr. Gray was able during his life to secure a building which at the time of its completion seemed ample for its purpose, he was less fortunate in his efforts to obtain a permanent fund for the maintenance of the collection. In 1864, the sum of $10,000-$12,000 was raised by friends for its support; but the interest of all the available funds was far short of what was necessary for the proper payment of a curator, for necessary purchases of plants and books and for running expenses. In fact, during his lifetime, running expenses could not have been met had it not been for occasional gifts from friends of the herbarium, including, for several years, a grant from the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture. The bequest in his will was an attempt on his part to replace, as far as he was able, the sums obtained by him annually from various sources during his life. But even with the amount derived from the copyrights, which must, of necessity, diminish in future years, the endowments of the herbarium are by no means sufficient to provide for its maintenance, even on the present scale. At the time of the transfer in 1864, the herbarium contained at least two hundred thousand specimens, and the library between two and three thousand works. Both have increased largely since that date.