182 ^ EEPOKT OF THE COUNCIL, 



The Council, therefore, while reducing expenditure in every 

 direction as a temporary expedient, anxiously occupied them- 

 selves with the task of discovering in what way the income of the 

 Society might be so increased as to enable them again to 

 venture upon measures more conducive to its general interests. 

 1 which the 

 T by what it 

 might itself contain, but by the results of the advancing skill of 

 others exhibited within it, was clearly indispensable. The time 

 had passed when monthly meetings in a small room in a London 

 street would satisfy the expectations of the public. It was 

 necessary to exhibit gardening on a great scale, and on its own 

 ground. The Garden at C his wick was no longer able to supply 

 that want. InaccessibiUty, according to modern notions, and 

 original faults of construction, had rendered it useless for ex- 

 hibition purposes, and a large annual pecuniary loss. Never- 

 theless the principal income of the Society from the year 1839 

 had been derived from Chiswick, either directly or indirectly, 

 and the Council felt persuaded that if some other garden, more 

 favourably placed, and constructed with all the advantages of 

 modem skill, could be obtained, the utility and prosperity of the 

 Society would rise higher than ever. 



While endeavouring to find a site near London fit for this 

 purpose, the Council learned that Her Majesty's Commissioners 

 for the Exhibition of 1851 were contemplating the appropriation 

 of the central part of their land at South Kensington as a 

 Garden, to be surrounded by I*-alian arcades. On this becoming 

 known, application was immediately made for the part so enclosed 

 to be used by the Society as a Town Garden for shows and pro- 

 menades. His Royal Highness the Prince Consort supported 

 the application as President of the Society ; and at a meeting 

 held at Buckingham Palace on the 37th June, the Prince an- 

 nounced to the Council that Her Majesty's Commissioners were 

 ready to grant a lease of aO acres at Kensington Gore upon 

 certain conditions, the more important of which were the fol- 



The Commissioners to expend 50,000Z. upon a highly decorated 

 Italian Arcade, and certain costly earthworks required as the 

 foundation of a Garden. 



The Commissioners to claim no rent until the expenses of the 

 Society — which include interest upon money borrowed — shall 

 have been defrayed; all income beyond such expenses to be 



