THE HISTORY OF GARDENING 5 



" jth August. — I went to see Mr. Watts, keeper of 

 the Apothecaries' garden of simples at Chelsea, 

 where there is a collection of innumerable rarities 

 of that sort particularly, besides many annuals, 

 the tree bearing Jesuits' bark, which had done such 

 wonders in quartan agues. What was very ingenious 

 was the subterranean heat, conveyed by a stove 

 under the conservatory, which was all vaulted with 

 brick, so as he has the doors and windows open in 

 the hardest frosts, secluding only the snow." 



The Chelsea garden was framed, in the main, on 

 the pattern of the herbalists' gardens, and one of 

 the principal aims of its founders was the arrange- 

 ment of plants in a systematic manner, that is, 

 according to their families. 



At the close of the seventeenth century, the plants 

 were arranged according to the systems of Ray and 

 Tournefort, and in practice this scheme is still 

 partially carried out, inasmuch, as trees and shrubs 

 are generally grouped apart from herbaceous plants, 

 for matters of convenience. 



Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the 

 Linnean classification gradually supplanted the 

 systems of Ray and Tournefort, and this was again 

 superseded by Decandolle and Lindley about the 

 middle of the nineteenth century. Since the re- 

 organisation of the garden in 1902, the sequence of 

 the natural orders for the herbaceous plants is that 

 of Bentham and Hooker's " Genera Plantarum." 



From 1836 to 1853, the fame of the Chelsea 

 garden was at its zenith, largely owing to the great 

 activity of John Lindley, who occupied the chair of 

 Professor of Botany and Prsefectus Horti during 

 that period. But in 1853 the Society found it 



