57 



appreciation as accrued considerably in 1856, 1857 and 1858. 

 A surmise only can be made that the southern part of the Kerr 

 property had once been cultivated — say for galmibier, — and had 

 reverted to blukar: but virgin forest certainly existed on the 

 northern part, for that forest still persists — a most valuable asset 

 to the Gardens, and there is a little more of it just outside the 

 Gardens on that part of the Kerr property marked in the map K2, 

 wliicli, as said, on the makin"' of Cluny Road was cut off from the 

 rest. The trees growing on both bits of land attest to the forest 

 l)eing primitive : for there are among them such as do not return 

 through l)lukar, into forest younger than a hundred years. The eye 

 •of Sir tStamford Raffles for instance, therefore, saw forest where 

 we see it still. But south of the Bandstand hill there seems to l)e 

 scarcely a tree which could have been standing in 1860. 



We are told (Appendix 2) that the Society spent •$1448.10 

 out of its capital on tlie clearing of the southern i)art of the land and 

 on reading. 



Tlie first roads made appear to have l)een what we now call the 

 Office Gate Road and the Ring Roads, the Liane Road, and the Ma- 

 ranta Avenue. The present Main Gate the Society did not make their 

 ])rincipal entrance ; nor do they seem at first to have made the Main 

 Gate Road. That Road was a later construction, as the abruptness 

 of its junction (at d. on the map) with the first system of drives 

 indicates. The hollow where the lake now is, must have been a 

 swamp down the centre of which the boundary of the Kerr property, 

 (fram 1859 to January 1866 the boundary of the Society's pro- 

 ^jerty), made the straight line a-b on the map. 



Probably for the sake of getting all the influence possible, the 

 Committee was made very large. Fourteen sat on it, witli His 

 Honor the Governor as Cliairman, and Avith Mr. J. E. Macdonald 

 as Treasurer: and on September 13th 1860, this large Committee 

 was enlarged to twenty one, five in rotation taking control of aft'airs 

 along with the Treasurer, who henceforward was to be called Secre- 

 tary as well. 



\A'lien the first Committee of fourteen was appointed, and who 

 were elected to it, are unrecorded ; but in the first appendix (below 

 p. 64) we find the names of eight who were present at a Committee 

 meeting, together with the names of seven others who were then 

 added to the Committee to make up the number to twenty-one. 



Though hoping to benefit local agriculture, the Committee set 

 as its first object the creating of a pleasure garden, as an alternative 

 to the Esplanade, which was then the only resort for the evening 

 drive. The Committee's efforts consequently began by providing a 

 place where a l>and could play; and the hill top which is 109 feet 



*Some trees on the Bandstand hill break the continuity of the terraces, 

 as if spared when the terraces were made; and the southernmost of them are 

 on the west a tree of Artocarpns rigida, the Monkey Jack, and on the east a 

 tree of Artocarpus lanceaefolia. Everything south of them except the Sagos by 

 the Lily-pond and perhaps two other trees, appears to have been planted sinc§ 

 G9,rdens were laid out. 



