63 



Botanic Garden, in ISTo $11,324; and in the three years following 

 the Government budgeted annually $7580 for the Botanic Garden ' 

 and $2400 for the Zoological Garden. 



In the Singapore Daily Times for December 19th, 1874 and for 

 the following days, there may be found an advertisement of the 

 taking over of the Garden by the Government and of it being open 

 now to all under the rules given, the right to receiving cut flowers, 

 etc., being reserved to the subscribers within the Garden's means 

 of suppl}Ting them. 



At this date the Garden they may well have been quite a 

 pleasant place to wander in, — ^a park in fact, but they had no 

 ♦Srcientilic value whatsoever, for the number of species of plants cul- 

 tivated was about 500 (Guide, 1889) and the animals were only a 

 small collection of birds. The Society had lost way, though in the 

 few years before they had been useful at times to the Government for 

 the supplying of seed-coconuts to Mauritius and of seed of cocoa, 

 cloves and pepper to Queensland, in answer to official requests from 

 those colonies ; l)ut it would seem that the staif of the Garden col- 

 lected what was needed from outside; and the Garden itself played 

 no part in the service. 



Then to the Library Committee in answer to the request for 

 a Superintendent, Sir Joseph Hooker sent out an energetic, but 

 verv young man, in James Murton, who, arriving in Singapore in 

 October, 1875, with a large supply of new plant-introductions, chief- 

 ly from Ceylon, converted with these and with later supplies from 

 Kew, Mauritius, Brisbane, etc., the Agri-Horticultural Society's 

 park into a working Botanic Garden; while William Krohn, em- 

 ployed by the Committee, built up the collection of animals. 

 Lawrence Niven now took leave, and died while away. His work, — 

 the landscape gardening and terracing, — had been well done, so 

 well done that little has been altered since : whether the plans were 

 his entirely, or were not, is unrecorded: but it is evident that he 

 greatly influenced them : and the smallness of the pay given to him 

 suggests that he undertook the work largely for the love of it. 



I. H. BURKILL. 



APPENDIX 1. 



Feom the SixG.vroKE Free Press op 13th Sept , 18G0. 



A meeting of the Committee of the Singapore Agri-Horti- 

 cultural Society was held on the 28th ultimo, the Honourable the 

 Governor, President of the Society, being in the chair. The follow- 

 ing members were present : — Messrs. J. d'Almeida, C. H. Harrison, 

 Whampoa, C. R. Bigg, J. E. Macdonald, M. F. Davidson, and Qhpt. 

 Burn. I'he Treasurer's accounts, showing a balance of $36.49 in 

 fa\\)ur of the Society, having been examined and passed, the follow- 

 ing resolutions were adopted : — 



1. That the Treasurer be requested to collect the monthly sub- 

 scriptions from the 1st -January last and in futurj that they be col- 

 lected quarterly in advance. 



2. That the members of the Committee Ije augmented to 

 twenty one members, and that the following gpntlemen be requested 



