384 NOTE OF THE EDITOR. 



the same kind of Journal precisely/ accompanying, and as supplemen- 

 tary to, the numbers of the 'Botanical Magazine; 5 and this continued, 

 and in such a form as to be bound up separately from that work (and 

 copies were also sold separately), under the title *)f c Companion to 

 the Botanical Magazine, 5 in two volumes, large octavo, with thirty- 

 two plates. 



AH these were conducted during the time the Editor held the Chair 



of Botany in the University of Glasgow. On his removal to the Royal 

 Gardens of Kew in 1841, where he maintained a still more extensive 

 correspondence, and had greater facilities for obtaining information from 

 all parts of the world, Mr. Bailliere suggested the propriety of editing 

 a journal which should more immediately emanate from the Metropolis 

 of the kingdom, and consequently from the head-quarters of science ; 



'/ 



fig 1 " 



history, or uses ; together with botanical notices and information, and oc- 

 casional portraits and memoirs of eminent botanists" was the result. 

 This, extending to seven volumes, each of nearly 700 pages, and illus- 



* 



trated with 168 plates, was continued till 1848, when Mr. Lovell Keeve 

 undertook to carry it on under the altered title (seeing it was likely to 

 include a great deal of information respecting Kew Gardens, and its 

 "Museum of Vegetable Products 55 ) of "Journal of Botany and 

 Kew Garden Miscellany, 55 which now closes with the Ninth Vo- 

 lume, and 108 Plates. 



Could this now extensive publication, or any portion of it, have been 

 of a sufficiently popular character to have encouraged the publisher to 

 remunerate a competent Editor, or even some of the Contributors, 

 there is no doubt it would have been better worth the attention of the 

 scientific world. For its many deficiencies the voluntary Editor is alone 

 responsible. He is not blind to them himself; and could he see as 

 others see them, a still more unfavourable opinion would be the result. 

 It has however been productive to him of a most interesting corre- 

 spondence with men of science and travellers of every grade and in 

 every clime (many of them now numbered with the dead), and which, 

 towards the close of a long life devoted to the prosecution and promo- 

 tion of botanical knowledge, he cannot but reflect upon with satisfac- 

 tion and with gratitude. 



Royal Gardens, Kew, December 1, 1857. 



