576 TUE yATUKAL HISTORT EEYIEW. 



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 conservatories, 

 such as no three establishments on the Continent put together can 

 rival — three museums, each an original conception of itself, contain- 

 ing 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 nomen- 

 clature, and beauty of keep, and excellent botanical libraries, includ- 

 ing 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, 

 Indian Office, and many private companies, enlarged the bounds of 

 his intercourse in all directions, and at a comparative -trifling cost pro- 

 cured 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 economic botany which 

 he has diffused among the labouring 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 scien- 

 tific labours not only did not cease on his coming to Kew, but were 

 literally doubled. Eising early and going to bed late, and rarely 

 going into society, the whole of his mornings and evenings were 

 devoted to scientific botany. The " Species Tilicum," prepared wholly 

 at Kew, is of itself a sufficient monument of one man's industry ; and 

 when to this we add that he published from his own pen upwards of 

 fifty volumes of descriptive botany, all of them of merit and standard 

 authority, it must be confessed that his public career has in no way 

 interfered with his scientific one. Indeed, up to the day of his death 

 his publications were progressing as busily as ever, and the first part 

 had appeared of a new work, the " Synopsis Filicum," for the con- 

 tinuation of which extensive preparations had been made. 



Not content with publishing himself, he was always forward in 

 obtaining for others remunerative botanical employment. Besides 

 numberless appointments given to young and rising gardeners and 

 botanists, he procured the publication of the results of many scien- 



