Brooklyn's Botanic Gardener
A man who watches 2,000 trees grow in Brooklyn, Dr. George S. Avery Jr. '24, Director of Brooklyn's Botanic Garden, is one of the few men who live a country existence in the city. Surrounded by ten acres valued at ten million dollars, he can also enjoy the Elizabethan Age, the Orient, Holland, and very nearly Paradise, in some of the special gardens under his supervision.
It must be added, however, that his responsibilties are numerous and diverse. The educational program sponsored by the Garden for amateur gardeners of all ages is extensive. Its publication Plantsand Gardens has an international public. The scientific staff working in a laboratory on the grounds has won widespread recognition for findings on viruses which cause plant tumors, and the insects that trasmit them. Dr. Avery himself is an authority on hormones and plant growth, with a special interest in natural dwarf trees, many of which have won prizes in international flower shows. One of Dr. Avery's prize possessions is a seedling metasequoias, a tree that disappeared from America 20 million years ago, and was known only as a fossil until it was sent to Dr. Avery alive by a Chinese botanist in Tibet. His rare dwarf oaks, evergreens and other midget trees are popular with city dwellers, whose gardens, too, are miniature.
Fifty million people have visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden with its ten thousand different kinds of plants, in the forty years of its existence. During that time hurricanes, ice storms, insects and disease have often wrought discouraging havoc; and Dr. Avery must work closely with a crew of trained laborers who are essential to the Garden's beauty and long- range plans. Many of the special gardens within the Garden are famous and require constant care.
Dr. Avery received the M.S. degree from Dartmouth in 1925, the Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1927. He taught on the faculties of Duke and Connecticut College, was a Foreign Fellow of the Rock- efeller Foundation in 1938, and has published numerous articles on scientific subjects. From 1931 until 1944 he was Director of the Connecticut Arboretum.
