PRKSIDEXTIAL ADDRESS. SPXTIOX C. 4I 



-interesting in the world. A large number of very interesting and highly- 

 valuable plants belonging to this Flora are gradually becoming extinct. The 

 opportunity for preserving them for observation and investigation will soon 

 pass away". A National Garden, maintained by Government and under 

 suitable scientific control, affords the most satisfactory means for preserving 

 and studying such plants, and this duty is recognised in every important 

 Colony of the Empire. If suitable land, with the necessary climate for a 

 Botanical Garden, could be obtained within easy reach of Cape Town, it is 

 in every way desirable that the idea should not be lost sight of, and that 

 the Government should recognise the duty of providing such a Garden as 

 ■ one of the national institutions of the country. 



" Its economic influence, directly and indirectly, upon the development of • 

 the vegetable resources of the Colony, may be gathered from the results that 

 have accrued to other Colonies from similar institutions. These, however, 

 are hardly more important than the scientific value attached to the preserva- 

 tion of the singularly interesting plants of South Africa. Such plants could 

 only be successfully cultivated and preserved in an institution where they 

 could be arranged and grown under circumstances entirely removed from 

 the merely local interest engendered by municipal control." 



That it may not be supposed that the Cape Town Gardens 

 alone have attracted the attention of those interested in botanical 

 enterprise in South Africa, I will conclude these quotations 

 with two which have broader references. The Director of the 

 Forests and Botanic Gardens of Mauritius, recording his im- 

 pressions of South Africa, formed in 1883, says: — 



" I travelled from Algoa Bay overland to Cape Town. I visited all the 

 Botanic Gardens at the Cape, namely. Port Elizabeth, Graham's Town and 

 Cape Town. They, in many respects, are most disappointing, being Botanic 

 Gardens merely in name. The directors and curators are not to blame for 

 this, but the Gardens have to justify their existence and support themselves 

 by the sale of plants. The}" are simply nursery establishments, and the 

 stock on hand, generally speaking, is such as one finds in the nurseries at 

 home, stove or tropical plants excepted. Thej^ seem to supply a want, the 

 Graham's Town one especially, in supplying the Colonists with flowers, shrubs, 

 and useful fruiting and flowering trees. Should, however, a stranger like 

 myself wish to see African plants he need not look in these Gardens for them." 



And finally I will repeat some interesting observations made 

 by the Director of Kew in 1895, with reference to the transfer 

 of the Public Gardens of King William's Town to the Corpora- 

 tion : — 



" At the present moment Cape Colony is the only important British Pos- 

 session which does not possess a fully-equipped Botanical Institution. It is 

 true it possesses a fine Colonial Herbarium under the competent charge of 

 Professor MacOwan and an Agricultural Department which he efficiently 

 advises on botanical subjects. But beyond this it has no central authority 

 dealing with the practical aspects of the Science of Botany, and no gardens 

 under technical control where careful experimental cultivation could be 

 carried on or where special seeds and plants could be obtained for starting 

 new industries. This condition of affairs is scarcely creditable to a large 

 and wealthy community like that at the Cape. The town gardens now 

 established in the more important centres of population in Cape Colony are 

 likely to be useful as breathing spaces and as ornamental adjuncts to public 

 buildings. As purely pleasure gardens, supported by the municipality out 

 of the local rates, they will also have their own special value. It was entirely 

 a misnomer to call them Botanic Gardens and it is as well that the name 

 was changed and their proper character officially recognised. 



" Something, however, more than an ornamental garden, dotted here and 

 there, is required in South Africa. A central establishment in the neighbour- 

 Tiood of Cape Town devoted to the scientific study and experimental cultiva- 

 tion of plants, fully equipped to discharge its duties as a national institution 

 ■on the lines of Kew, would alone be worthy of the future of South Africa. 



