238 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Botanic Garden at Edinburgh, and also received the title of 

 King's Botanist for Scotland. 



In the Garden, as he found it then, much required to be done. 

 He brought with him an unrivalled experience and knowledge 

 of such work. Quietly, patiently, and with unerring judgment 

 and artistic skill, he preserved what was worth keeping and 

 remodelled or added that which was required. The beautiful 

 range of new glass houses, with their many special fittings for 

 the improved growth conditions and the better display of their 

 plant inhabitants, bear eloquent testimony to the skill of the 

 Master Architect who planned them. The regrouping and 

 arrangement of trees and shrubs, the creation of new flower beds 

 and borders, necessitated a relay out and alignment of roads, 

 walks, and paths. The beauty of a garden park such as this 

 depends to some extent on the way in which the visitor is led to 

 approach different objects of interest. A subtle turn in a path 

 may reveal in its proper setting and proportion a herbaceous 

 bed, a group of shrubs or trees, or a wonderful vista revealing 

 some distant object of interest and beauty. The wrong approach 

 may mar many delightful scenes and effects by leading up to 

 them from the wrong angle. Such, however, cannot be said of 

 the lay-out of this Garden. With the true eye of an artist for 

 proportion, colour, and form, the best use was made of the 

 natural possibilities of the Garden as presented by its undulating 

 surface and sloping lawns. It is all so excellent that it would 

 be difficult to say which part was the best, but the concensus of 

 opinion seems to centre round the rock garden as the master- 

 piece. To the botanist and lover of Alpine plants it is a pure 

 delight to wander through the labyrinthine paths and stepped 

 ascents and descents of this home from home of Alpine vegeta- 

 tion. All is in harmony and nothing jars upon the sense as out 

 of place or unnatural, and to copy nature truly on canvas or in 

 model is the highest aim of the artist and the severest test of his 

 skill. The Regius Keeper was no less interested in the welfare 

 of the plants. The best knowledge that science and practice 

 could afford was brought to bear on their cultivation. No one 

 understood better the natural growth conditions under which 

 these frequently minute but intensely interesting members of 

 the plant kingdom flourish, and each tiny plant was assigned to 

 a niche in the rock garden where its requirements in light^ 

 water, and food material could best be served, and seldom did 



