101 



■of it he was able to spend over $3,000 ou coolies' labour, so that 

 as the Avage was $5 per mensem (and had been $4), he liad fifty 

 men in employment besides his overseers, and that is more than the 

 Department has been able to retain in the '" Botanic (larden " for 

 very many years up to the present year. 



In the year 1879 the Government authorised the Gardens to 

 commence planting a piece of land called the Military Reserve 

 which lies to the north. This land is what is now known as the 

 ■" Economic Garden." The first occupation of it began at once and 

 a shed for Cliinese coolies was erected, and a house for the Road 

 foreman employed in the Gardens. 



This Military Reserve was not altogether waste when taken 

 •over; its lower parts had been planted in indigo ])y Chinese, who 

 lived on the slope among fruit trees. The low land seemed to Fox 

 who hap]ie]ied to have been at Kew when Cross had returned from 

 Para with his first Rubber seeds^ to be just the kind of ground 

 which Cross descril)ed as suited, and he took the young Hevea trees 

 in the I'alm valley to it. He set to work also planting on the 

 higher ground, but single lianded after Mnrtoirs fall could do little, 



Murton's last work for the Gardens was the compilation of a 

 Gardens' catalogue which was printed and published; but is not 

 available in tlie Settlements, because Cantley suppressed it as alto- 

 gether unreliable (Report for 1882, p. 13), 



Xathaniel Cantley, a native of Thurso, X.B., Kew-trained 

 and for a time Assistant Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens in 

 Mauritius, was now ap])ointed to succeed Murton. JTe arrived in 

 the Colony in Xovember, 1880, but was forced by illness to take 

 leave in March, 1881. Again Mr. Fox acted while Cantley voy- 

 aged to England via tlie Cape. Sick as Cantley was when he went 

 on board, he had some two thousand botanic s]3ecimens cut from 

 the trees in the. Gardens and their neighbourhood which he dried 

 on the voyage with a view to getting them determined at Kew. It 

 appears that many of these found their resting place in the Kew 

 Herbarium. Cantley resumed charge at the end of 1881, and 

 presented a programme of work to the Gardens Committee which 

 obtained a])proval. First of all be it said that the Government had 

 the formation of a Forest Department in mind, and with that in 

 view Cantley proposed tiiat the Military Reserve should carry a 

 series of Malayan timber trees. This was approved; and l)ecause 

 the space in the Botanic Garden for new introductions was, as 

 Murton com])lained, restricted, Cantley wove into his series of 

 Malayan trees, all tliose of his new introductions which had an 

 ■economic value, until gradually tlie importations exceeded in num- 

 ber his Malayan trees. At tlie same time into the Botanic (larden 

 he ])lanted th'> things tliat had not an economic interest. Xext lie 

 made, with aii])roval, two nurseries, one for ornamental plants in 

 the Botanic Garden, and one for forest trees in the Military Re- 

 serve. The second covered several acres adjoining Cluny Road and 

 extending back a couple of hundred yards to where traces of it 

 ■exist still in groups of certain trees. He arranged for the sale of 

 plants from these Xurseries. Tliirdly he asked for, and got, a 



