1878.] 



AND HOKTICULTURIST. 



219 



Smith, ex-curator of the Royal Gardens, Kew ;" 

 and on the fly-leaf " Mr. Thomas Meehan, with 

 the kind regards and rememberances of his 

 old master, the Author." It brought to my 

 mind more vividly than did my recent visit, the 

 Kew of some thirty-five years ago. The pupils 

 of that day are scattered, and many of them 

 gone ! Seeman's bones are in the swamps of 

 Central America, and Mclvor's among the 

 hills of the East Indies ; but the "old master-' still 

 lives, though probably much beyond his eightieth 

 year. About twenty acres comprised all in that 

 day. The kitchen garden was still walled in, and 

 the pleasure grounds fenced off; still in a measure 

 Royal private grounds. Sir William J. Hooker 

 had but comparatively recently been appointed 

 to the directorsliip, and my " old master" to the 

 curatorship. Dr. Lindley had been strongly 

 pressed for the directorship, but Sir William 

 obtained the place. It was fortunate for the 

 world that it was ; for Botany and Horticulture 

 all over the world has been moved by Kew, 

 and I am quite sure that Kew owes more of its 

 present famous magniticerce to Sir William 

 Hooker than the outside world has the least idea 

 of. No one questions his devotion to science ; 

 but he knew that science, after all, has to be sup- 

 ported by the people, and he was willing that 

 the people should have benefits at Kew as well 

 ■tis scientists. The Economic Museum grew out 

 of this desire. Specimens of those vegetable 

 products useful in the arts and sciences were 

 arrayed for public inspection ; florists' flowers, 

 flower beds, and pleasant drives and walks were 

 not forgotten ; and, while science found all it ex- 

 pected, scientific instruction was so blended with 

 floral pleasure that the people were not jealous. 

 All were satisfied, and peer and peasant, the 

 learned and the unlearned, were proud of the gar- 

 dens, and only too glad to see them receive 

 support. This is how matters stood when I was 

 with my " old master." I was not surprised to 

 find that Kew had grown ; anything so wisely 

 planned must grow ; but 1 was surprised to find 

 it now a giant, so to speak — 400 acres ! 



Of all my haunts in the Old World, I was sure 

 1 should know Kew. In my mind I could see 

 the little old tavern where the stage coach 

 stopped, when a lad of 17, I was tipped out with 

 his trunk in order tf) run a two years' course of 

 «tudy here. I was sui-e I should recognize the lit- 

 tle old village houses in which my fellow students, 

 keeping themselves on ten shillings a week, had 

 to sleep in the garrets, and, as they used playfully 



to say, to lie in their beds and study astronomy 

 through the chinks in the tile-roofs. TherAwas no 

 doubt I could go to the exact spot where we used 

 to gather the rare grass, Cynodon dactyton, and 

 exchange our treasure for herbarium specimens 

 with other botanists elsewhere. Above all, I 

 should know the old Cactus House, to the care of 

 which I was banished for many months for refus- 

 ing, boy-like, to " peach on other fellows" who 

 had broken the rules. But I could see nothing of 

 any of these, and I could no more tell that I had 

 ever known these gardens by anything I could 

 see than if I had not been alive thirty-three years 

 before. Prof. Thistleton Dyer and Mr. Nicholson 

 kindly received me. and they had probably 

 not then been born •, and though Mr. John Smith 

 was still curator, it was not the Mr. John Smith, 

 my master, of the olden time. Mr. Smith, with a 

 kindness I shall not soon forget, insisted in per- 

 sonally escorting me through the grounds, 

 though the numerous calls on his attention 

 leave him scarcely any time to properly per- 

 form duties which must be done. I fear he 

 found me for some time a dull companion, for I 

 am sure with old remembrances crowding on 

 me, I never in all my journeyings felt so much 

 like a stranger in a strange land. At last we 

 came to the arboretum, and there at least were 

 the old trees, old acquaintances, just as I had 

 pictured them in my miud, and apparently just 

 the same as they ever were. I suppose they 

 must have grown some in all that time, but it 

 did not seem so. I measured the Turkey Oak, 

 15 feet in girth, and the spread of its head was 

 90 feet ; and the old Robinia— om- Yellow Locust, 

 was 12 feet 10 inches around ; of course they 

 could not have been so large when I first saw 

 them. 



Our American Oaks seem to do very well at 

 Kew, and I fancy do most of our American 

 trees. The largest Liriodendrons I have seen 

 any where in England were here. It would be 

 useless to attempt a detailed description of a 

 huge place like this. There are houses for 

 Pahns,for Ferns, for Orchids, for Aquatics, for 

 New Holland plants, for Succulents, and for 

 innumerable other classes of plants, not all 

 down in one bunch to save room and work, as in 

 a commercial establishment, but with some 

 view to landscape gardening eft'ect. In this 

 respect the great Palm House, of course, stands 

 preeminent. I think it must be somewhere 

 about 200 feet long by 70 feet wide, and there 

 are galleries along which you can walk and 



