THE 



£• 



2-J5 



July, 1858. 



N the evening of Friday, May 29, during the sitting 

 of the House of Commons in Committee of Supply, 

 a vote of £99,667 was submitted, for keeping in 

 repair the Royal Parks and Palaces. Mr. Williams, 

 lacking boldness to denounce the vote, according 

 to the policy of general obstruction to which he has 

 long devoted himself, had the coolness to propose 

 that a portion of the sum should be made up by a 

 forced sale of the surplus plants in Kew Gardens. 

 which he understood were most valuable. That 

 the proposal should not have been taken up and 

 adopted, is a fate common to the proposals of the 

 honourable gentleman, who, to maintain his assumed 

 character as a champion of retrenchment, would not spare sacrificing 

 the best specimens in a collection which the people have long re- 

 garded as their own school of practical botany, which they have paid 

 for, to promote education and science, and as the proper furniture of one 

 of the most delightful places of public resort. Retrenchment is no doubt 

 necessary in many of the public departments, but we have no sympathy, 

 and desire no friendship with a man who Avould openly ])lay the Vandal 

 with a public collection of any kind, whether of plants, minerals, pictures, 

 or what else, and the mistaken spirit of the would-be-liberal is plainly 

 manifested, when, to reduce an item of expenditure already small enough, 

 he would sacrifice the enjoyments of the people, by introducing a system 

 which might lead ultimately to the breaking up of the finest collection of 

 plants in the country. But Kew is to have a better fate. On that same 

 night Mr. Adams enquired whether any new greenhouse had been pro- 

 vided at Kew, in accordance with the recommendation of the committee, 

 and, as was urgently required, by the great increase in the most valuable 

 plants. As to the possibility of making the gardens profitable, the hon. 

 gentleman would find that the metropolitan parks had been supplied 

 during the past year, by the gardens at Kew, with upwards of 10,000 

 trees, which would otherwise have had to be provided out of the public funds. 



NO. VII. VOL I. I 



