100 



the Agri-llortifultural Society had had an orchid house, surround- 

 ed by trees, Murton had cleared considerably, and had 'made small 

 terraces on one of which the Carnivora House had been placed. 

 At its back trees had stood, which up to 1877 wore heavily fes- 

 toned with the beautiful indigenous climber Thunhergia laurijolia. 

 Unfortunately it kills its supports; and no sooner had Murton 

 commenced to construct a fernery under the shade of the creeper, 

 than the trees began to fall; he wrestled with the situation by 

 scaffolding, but this perished; and in 1H79 there was little but an 

 untidv corner, where the fernery had l)een commenced. Moreover 

 Murton complained bitterly of the way in which his best ferns 

 were stolen from this place. The Carnivora cages had been re- 

 moved before 1879; and in their place Murton had planted a collec- 

 tion of Bromeliads. Behind them, across the Lower Eing Eoad 

 and screening off the Propagating yard, was a tongue of virgin 

 jungle, whicli is now cultivated for shade plants, and contains 

 Slioreas with other typical forest trees: however the tongue has 

 been lengthened slightly by newer planting. 



West of the Bandstand hill the paths were not at all as they 

 are now. Flower-beds were about the head of the Lake ; and no 

 screen of trees such as is now, but a plantation of Pomelo trees 

 and trees of the Kenari nut, witli behind them cooly lines, and a 

 shrubbery near the Tyersall Gate. 



Along the Maranta Avenue was a long border with shrubs. 

 Garden road had not ceased to be a public thoroughfare; and the 

 Palm valley was untidy. Its slope under Garden Road had served 

 Murton for a source of clay when he needed it, and so been bared : 

 then he had smoothed it somewhat and tried to get it grassed over : 

 toward Cluny Eoad it was covered with Gleichenia fern. An old 

 cart track leading into the valley he had filled; and from the top, 

 where he seems to have planted ])alms, a path was made down to 

 the hollow which he had developed as an Economic Garden. In 

 this Economic Garden in 1879 the visitor would have found patches 

 of coffee, — Arabian, Liberian and Cape Coast, — the latter two being 

 introductions of 1877: the first as elsewhere in the Peninsula was- 

 suffering from the attacks of Heniileia. He would have found 

 Tea, Cacao and Sugar-Cane. The Canes were good introductions 

 from overseas, and were much pilfered. He would have found 

 Ipecacuanha struggling, and Cardamoms, Avocado Pear, and all 

 the various rubber trees that Kew could send out, including Hevea, 

 as well as 4000 pots of the local Gutta Singarip {Willughheia 

 firma) wliich it was tliought had a future, and 2<)00 pots of Eu- 

 calypts. He would have found also Teosinte, Maize, Mahogany 

 and various fruit trees. 



There was a raised path limiting the Garden on the north and 

 beyond it swamp forest. If the visitor had followed the path west- 

 wards he Avould have found large beds for flowering shrubs which 

 Murton raised with the purpose of saving the flowers in the more 

 puldic parts of the Garden from being cut for bouquets. 



Murton had for the Garden in the year 1879 from Govern- 

 ment $7,580, and by subscriptions and sales a further $370. Out 



