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A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE IMPERIAL BOTANIC GARDEN 

 AT ST. PETERSBURG. 



By the Director, Dr. von FISCHER. 



(With a Plan. Tab. I J 



The Imperial Botanic Garden is one of the many striking 

 features of St. Petersburg, well worthy the attention of the 

 visitors of the northern Metropolis. Like everything to be 

 seen there, it is on a gigantic scale, the lines of houses ex- 

 tending to a length of nearly three-quarters of an English 

 mile. The translator of the following account, furnished by 

 Dr. Fischer to the Horticultural Journal at Berlin, has had 

 recently the advantage of seeing this garden, and can bear 

 testimony to the extraordinary beauty of the establishment 

 and the perfection to which botanical cultivation has been 

 carried under the direction of that able gentleman, whom he 

 is proud to call his friend, and who is, in fact, the friend of 

 every liberal man in Europe connected with botanical pur- 

 suits. It may not be amiss to remark, that though the severe 

 winters of St. Petersburg are the cause of many difficulties, 

 yet these find, in a great measure, compensation, in the im- 

 mense quantity of solar light and warmth, which the plants 

 enjoy during the prolonged days of the short summers, accel- 

 erating the growth and maturity of vegetation in a surprising 

 degree. A large sum of money has been lately granted (as 

 much as £20,000) by his Majesty the Emperor, to improve 

 and further extend this princely establishment. — F. S. 



The Imperial Botanic Garden is an important testimony 

 of Peter the Great's creative genius. His comprehensive 

 mind fostered not only those sciences to which he inclined 

 most, but attended to whatever was useful. By an Imperial 

 Ukase, dated the 11th February, 1714, he ordered the garden 

 to be established on one of the islands, formed by the Delta 

 of the Neva. It was, like most early Botanic Gardens, 

 originally intended to serve for the culture of medicinal 

 plants. On that account, and also because the government 

 depot of drugs was situated in its immediate neighbourhood, 

 it obtained the name of the "Apothecary's Garden," as the 

 island, on which both establishments were situated, retains to 



