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Arnold Arboretum, the Gray Herbarium, the Farlow Library and Herbarium, the Botanical Museum, and the Harvard Forest (par. 52, R. 78).
The Gray Herbarium, located in Cambridge adjacent to the site of the former Botanic Garden, was engaged in systematic botany or taxonomy (the classification of plants and the study of their relationships) in the field of phanerogamic or flowering plants. In 1944 its resources were a herbarium of 1,300,000 herbaceous specimens, a library of 43,000 books and pamphlets, and an endowment yielding an income covering only two-thirds of its annual operating cost. The deficit was covered by advances from the University (par. 53, R. 78-79).
The Farlow Library and Herbarium, which had developed out of the researches and collections of Professor Farlow, was, like the Gray Herbarium, engaged in taxonomy, but in the field of cryptogamic plants (fungi, algae, mosses, etc.) The Farlow Library and Herbarium was also housed in Cambridge. In 1944 its resources were a large herbarium, a library of 36,000 volumes, and an endowment yielding a restricted income which was slightly less than the annual cost of its operation and which prevented any large volume of outstanding research. In 1944 it was evident that the income available to the Farlow was inadequate for its future survival as an independently housed and administered institution (par. 54, R. 79).
The Harvard Forest at Petersham, Massachusetts, had a small endowment yielding an inadequate income capable of supporting only the director and one assistant as members of the scientific staff. During the decade preceding 1944 the Harvard Forest had led a precarious existence, dependent upon annual gifts, transfers of salaries to other institutions and other emergency measures for survival (par. 56, R. 80).
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The Botanical Museum, located in Cambridge, included a number of botanical collections, including the famous collection of glass flowers, a collection of economic plants, a collection of plant fossils, the extensive economic botanical collection of Professor Oakes Ames, his herbarium of economic plants, an orchid herbarium, and a library of orchidology. Its resources yielded an income equal to less than half its cost of operations, the balance of the cost being made up by University expenditures for building maintenance and by annual sums in excess of $10,000 in total from the Biology Department, the Bussey Institution, and the Arnold Arboretum, for the salary and research budget of Professor Mangelsoff, the Assistant Director of the Museum (par. 55, R. 79-80).
On the other hand, the Arnold Arboretum in 1944 had an endowment and income equal to the combined endowments and income of the other eight botanical institutions affiliated with Harvard. Its endowment in 1944 was approximately $3,000,000, with a further $500,000 in prospect, and its endowment income exceeded its annual expenditures. In addition, the Arboretum had received in the previous decade annual gifts averaging about 10% of its annual income. Furthermore, its income was used to contribute annually $2,800 paid to the Superintendent of the Atkins Garden in Cuba, $2,500 toward the salary of the Assistant Director of the Botanical Museum, and two-thirds (or $8,000) of the salary of Professor Merrill as Administrator of Botanical Collections (par. 57, R. 80).
Professor Bailey's study resulted in a report entitled "Botany and its Applications at Harvard", submitted to the Provost in June 1945, commonly referred to as the Bailey Report (par. 59, R. 81). The Bailey Report pointed out what it described as the uncorrelated development of the several institutions concerned with botany during a period from 1870 to 1930, their isolation from each other,
