Pshers'eae. | 244 
of the Imperial Garden to science may be as marked, and that its 
welfare and renown may be as great as in the past is the cordial 
wish of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.” 
History OF THE GARDEN. 
The Botanic Garden of St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the 
Great about 1713. The date usually given is the 11th February 
(old style) 1714, but Lipsky has been able to prove from documen- 
tary evidence that it was in existence at least as long ago as the 
11th December (old style) 1713. There are therefore only ten 
ears between the foundation of St. Petersburg itself and that of 
its Botanic Garden. If the laying out of the capital on the marshy 
banks and islands of the Neva was a bold and hazardous enterprise 
which only the genius and the iron will of the great ruler 
could carry out, the foundation of a garden on such ground 
was in its own way a no less bold experiment. The -site 
selected for the garden was on one of the northern islands 
in the angle formed by the Greater Nevka an 
branch of the latter, the Karpowka. It was very low and consequently 
much exposed to floods. The primary object of the garden was the 
- cultivation of medicinal plants for the army and navy. Hence its 
designation as Apothecaries’ Garden and of the island on which it 
was situated as Apothecaries’ Island, a name which is still in use. 
Subsequently the garden also served teaching purposes, and as its 
scope was widened, room was made for a more scientific treatment. 
We possess a description of the garden by Peter von Haven, a 
Dane, who went to St. Petersburg in 1736. Speaking of Apothe- 
- caries’ Island, which at that time was covered with a pretty spruce- 
~ wood through which avenues had been cut, the writer says, * The 
finest thing in the island is, however, the garden from which the 
island has its name . . . One finds there many kinds of plants 
and trees as occur in Europe and Asia, particularly in the green- 
' seem to have at any time been very large. F. E. L. Fischer 
estimates it at 1300* at its highest. In the beginning of the last 
- * A “Catalogus plantanum horti Imperialis medici Petropolitani in Insula 
Apothecaria,” published in 1796, contains 1456 species, _ pes ck 
ae ee eee 
