74. HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TREES. ‘PART I. 
being quoted than several of those named; but, as we have 
invited all proprietors and gardeners in the British Isles to send 
us accounts of their foreign trees and shrubs for this work, and 
as many of these have done so, we must refer in this place to 
the paragraph headed Statistics, given to each tree and shrub; 
where, under each county, will be found the names of all those 
seats most remarkable for foreign trees and shrubs, with the 
dimensions and other particulars of the plants they contain. 
Several botanic gardens were formed during this century, 
both at home and abroad; and the exchange of seeds and 
plants which takes place universally among such establishments 
increased the foreign productions of each respective country. 
It also became the practice, in the latter part of this century, 
for private persons and public bodies to send out botanical 
collectors. Several of these were sent out from the Royal 
Gardens at Kew, others by the subscriptions of individuals, and 
some by nurserymen. 
Chelsea Garden (already noticed, p. 47.) is said by Collinson 
to have been, in his time, the richest in plants in Kurope. It 
was brought to the highest degree of eminence during this 
century by Miller. Its origin is unknown: the first notice 
of it, in the books of the Apothecaries’ Society, is in 1674, 
when it was proposed to wall it round; and two years after- 
wards, in 1676, the Society agreed to purchase the plants 
growing in Mrs. Cape’s garden at Westminster. ‘They may 
probably also have had plants from the garden mentioned in 
Evelyn’s Diary for 1658 as “the medical garden at West- 
minster, well stored with plants, under [Edward] Morgan, 
a skilful botanist.” Piggot is the name of the first curator of 
the Chelsea Garden, noticed in 1676. Watts, mentioned both 
by Ray and Evelyn, was an apothecary by profession, but 
undertook the care of the garden in 1680, at 50/. per annum. 
Miller was appointed to the garden in 1722, at the time Sir 
Hans Sloane, when applied to for a renewal of the lease of 
the garden, granted it to the Society in perpetuity, at a rental 
of 5/. per annum, and on condition that specimens of fifty 
new plants should annually be furnished to the Royal 
Society, till the number amounted to two thousand, that 
number, at that time, being supposed likely to exhaust the 
botanical riches of the whole world. Miller resigned his 
situation as curator, a short time before his death in 1771, and 
was succeeded by Forsyth, who left it to become royal gardener 
at Kensington in 1784, and was succeeded by Fairbairn, 
who died in the garden in 1814. His situation is now filled 
by Mr. William Anderson, F.L.S. H.S., &c., who has greatly 
enriched the garden, and contributed materially to its present 
high character. : 
