330 KEW GARDEN MUSEUM. 
stoves and other buildings. An excellent brick structure, occupied in 
part by the dwelling of one of the foremen, and in part as rooms for 
preserving fruit for the use of the Palace, was thereby vacated, and it 
suggested itself to the Director that, with a little alteration, this might 
be made available for the reception of all kinds of useful and curious 
Vegetable Products, which the living plants of the Garden and the spe- 
cimens in the Herbarium could not exhibit; and that such a collection 
would render great service, not only to the scientific botanist, but to 
the merchant, the manufacturer, the physician, the chemist, the drug- 
gist, the dyer, the carpenter and cabinet-maker, and artisans of every 
description, who might here find the raw material (and, to a certain 
extent, also the manufactured or prepared article) employed in their 
several professions, correctly named, and accompanied by some account 
of its origin, history, native country, etc., either attached to the specimens 
or recorded in a popular catalogue. The suggestion was communicated 
to the heads of the Establishment, the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s 
Woods and Forests: leave was asked to convert the building (at first, 
in part) into a Museum, and orders were given for one large room to 
be formed, with a gallery, side-lights, and sky-light, and fitted up with , 
glazed mural and table cases. The foundation of the Museum con- 
sisted of the Director’s private collection (presented by himself), some 
few objects already belonging to the Garden, chiefly fruits and seeds, 
and some given by Mr. John Smith, whose son, Mr. Alexander Smith, 
received the appointment of Curator. Scarcely were the doors opened 
to the publie, when specimens of various kinds came from all quarters, 
so that it was soon found necessary to enlarge our accommodation, 
till, in the present year (1853), all the ten rooms of the building and 
all the passages are completely filled, and a very large quantity of arti- 
cles are put aside for want of space to exhibit them. It has now be- 
come necessary to apply to the Crown for an entirely new structure, 
suited to the increased and continually increasing extent of the collec- 
tion, and worthy of the noble gardens of which it is a part, as well as 
of the Nation. One has but to see the crowds frequenting the exist- 
ing Museum (so great that the Director finds it frequently impossible to 
enter with distinguished visitors, who desire to have objects explained 
to them), to be satisfied of the deep interest the public take in such a 
collection,—a collection that at once appeals to the faculties and un- 
derstandings, showing the practical uses of the study and application 
