2 REPORT OP THE COUNCIL, 



purposes. Nurserymen, Gardeners, and Manufacturers readily 

 contributed their productions; and, with their assistance, col- 

 lections unsurpassed for beauty, utility, and interest were brought 

 together. They, however, failed to attract visitors in sufficient 

 number to save the Society's finances from renewed loss, the 

 Exhibitions of ]857 having cost more than 800L beyond the 

 iLLoiptj, CALiuhiive ui a vtjiy cuuHiuei-ame y.^[je nairTn'b upon per-"' 



visitors and the facilities of exhibitors. In like manner, the 

 Exhibitions in the year 1858-9, have again cost the Society above 

 bOOl. beyond the receipts, the principal part of which loss is 

 chargeable to the Garden. 



Had this deficiency been assignable to any circumstances likely 

 to be removed by time, or over which the Council could exercise 

 control, they might have still endeavoured to struggle with the 

 difficulties of their position, and to carry out the views of those 

 who are favourable to the maintenance of the Garden in its 

 integrity, in the hope that, if direct loss was sustained by the 

 Garden Shows, an equivalent indirect advantage might be derived 

 from the interest taken in the Garden by the public. But such 

 was not the case ; the returns of visitors showed that although 

 the sum of 3074/. 18s., which had been raised by voluntary 

 subscription, and a considerable further sum taken from the 

 income of the Society, had been expended in maintaining the 

 Garden and rendering it more attractive, yet the number of persons 

 visiting it, was not only continually decreasing, but had arrived 

 at so low a point as to render its preservation in its previous 

 state no longer advisable. The number of ordinary visitors, 

 Tvhich in 1843 was 8799, and in 1854, 5140, has sunk in the 

 past year to 2583, of which a large proportion consisted of 

 residents in the immediate neighbourhood, passing the gates over 

 and over again during the year. It was clear that the Garden 

 could be no longer regarded as a place of resort sufficiently 

 attractive to compensate for what is now considered inacces- 

 sibility, arising from the absence of useful railway conveyance ; 

 and the Council, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that the 

 whole of the ornamental part must be abandoned. Measures 

 have already been taken to reduce it to the condition of an 

 establishment where experiments can be conducted, the true 

 qualities of all new varieties of fruit-trees and esculent plants be 

 ascertained, fruit-trees of ascertained merit be preserved, and 

 plants propagated for distribution among the Fellows of the 



