1865.] OBITUARY — SIR W. J. HOOKER. 467 



a year, with £200 to hire a dwelling-house for himself, which 

 should be large enough to contain his library and herbarium, the 

 latter requiring no fewer than twelve ordinary sized rooms for their 

 accommodation. This was afterwards increased to £800 a year 

 with an official house in the Gardens, and accommodation for his 

 herbarium in the residence of the late King of Hanover where it 

 forms the principal part of the great Herbarium of Kew. The 

 noble Earl is fond of stating that on taking Sir William's appoint- 

 ment for signature to a brother Lord of the Treasury, the latter 

 remarked, " Well, we have done a job at last !" 



The history of his career as Director of the Royal Gardens is so 

 well and so widely known, that it need not detain us long. From 

 a garden of eleven acres, without herbarium, library, or museum 

 and characterized by the stinginess of its administration, under 

 his sole management it has risen to an establishment comprising 270 

 acres, laid out with wonderful skill and judgment ;— including an 

 arboretum of all such trees and shrubs as will stand the open air 

 in this country, magnificent ranges of hot-houses and conserva- 

 tories, such as no three establishments on the Continent put 

 together can rival ; — three museums, each an original conception 

 of itself, containing many thousand square feet of glass, and filled 

 with objects of interest in the vegetable kingdom from all parts of 

 the globe, a herbarium unrivalled for extent, arrangement, accuracy 

 of nomenclature, and beauty of keep, and excellent botanical 

 libraries, including small ones for the use of the gardeners and 

 museums. 



To the accumulation of these treasures he not only brought all 

 the powers of his Glasgow correspondence, but by means of his 

 friendly relations with the Admiralty, Colonial and Foreign 

 Offices, India Office, and many private companies, not only en- 

 larged the bounds of his intercourse in all directions, but at a com- 

 paratively trifling cost procured specimens from countries the most 

 distant and difficult of access. 



To him is due the formation of many of our colonial Gardens, 

 and the resuscitation of the rest; his example has stimulated 

 national gardens on the Continent to a degree they never felt 

 before ; whilst the amount of information on all branches of eco- 

 nomic botany which he has diffused among the laboring and 

 manufacturing classes can hardly be over-estimated. 



In conclusion, it is only right to state, that though these more 

 public duties have naturally attracted the most attention, his 

 scientific labors not only did not cease on his coming to Kew, 



