But whatever program you adopt as to increase of maintenance funds, it seems likely that the increase will come only by degrees and that a serious deficiency must be faced for some time to come.
One of the great difficulties of such a condition is the temptation to yield first to an impulse that would rob Peter to pay Paul and then to an impulse that would in desperation reverse the process when it is seen that Peter also is starving. It is very hard to adhere to a well-balanced and self-consistent policy of maintenance when confronted by insufficient means at every turn, but it is even more important under these circumstances than when no part of the work is in serious danger of starvation.
As a help toward a consistent and well-balanced distribution of maintenance funds we would urge a deliberate classification of the Garden lands for maintenance purposes, along the lines of our rough preliminary classification but much more carefully studied, and a correspondingly deliberate and systematic apportionment of the available resources for maintenance to the several classes of lands. The emphasis, of course, should not be upon a meticulously detailed cost-accounting and rigid adherence to budget allotments. Emergencies frequently arise which require shifts, as when infections arise that need to be promptly suppressed at the cost of almost any postponement of routine work. And it is proper here to point out, as a parenthesis, that we have observed in the Garden some such infections, notably of scales, which no well-conducted commercial establishment would have permitted to go as far as they have gone. If the infected plants could not have been cured with the means available, they would have been destroyed and burned.
The emphasis in the maintenance budgeting should rather be upon a general continuity of policy in treating each parcel of land year after year with about the same degree of economy in relation to other parcels, unless and until convincing reasons appear for deliberately changing its classification.
But in addition to this general classification, we strongly advise the deliberate selection within each class of lands of one or more preferential areas, no matter how small, which shall be kept up thoroughly well as samples of what would be done throughout all the areas of that class if funds permitted, leaving the rest of the lands in that class to be kept up only as well as the funds permit after taking care of these small samples perfectly.
The reasons for such a policy are two-fold. In the first place, it will show the public what can be done with adequate maintenance funds; and by the very sharpness of the contrast between these samples of first-rate maintenance in each class and the conditions which poverty enforces elsewhere in that class of lands, will stimulate increased financial support. In the second place, it will be of great value in building up and maintaining the ideals of the maintenance force itself. Where, because of poverty, almost nothing is thoroughly well done of its kind, where nearly every job is left half-finished because of the necessity of taking a few stitches somewhere else, not only is there much waste of effort—the sort of waste inseparable from poverty—but also there is bound to be a tendency to demoralization of the maintenance force itself, a lowering of its standards and ideals, an acceptance of enforced low standards as good enough, a loss of the priceless stimulus of pride and shame, of esprit de corps.
In addition to such suggestions for improvement of the mechanism of maintenance, we would urge the importance of placing the responsibility, under the Director-in-Chief, for the maintenance of grounds and for those cumulative improvements in detail which are inseparable from maintenance, upon some one first-class superintendent having the necessary technical skill and ideals, and the peculiar qualities needed by one who is to be at once a good executive and leader in his own department, a loyal subordinate to the Director-in-Chief, and a sympathetic collaborator with other specialists. Perhaps you have in your present personnel the man for such a position. Perhaps you need to look outside. But obviously a first-class man in such a position is of the greatest importance, especially during a period of building up the gardening and maintenance force and improving its work.
PART II
IMPROVEMENTS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH MAINTENANCE; THE MAKING OF EXISTING FEATURES BETTER OF THEIR KIND
As previously indicated, no sharp line can be drawn between maintenance of the sort which ensures progressive improvement (as a result of the controlled growth of long-lived plants and associations of plants), and, on the other hand, improvements of detail which are not strictly maintenance but which, although not very notable individually, are important because of their collective and cumulative effect.
There are many opportunities for this sort of improvement of detail in the Botanical Garden, as would be almost inevitable where past improvements and maintenance have been carried on under the handicap of insufficient funds, and with the recurring temptation to undertake an improvement under circumstances adverse to the best results.