168 OBSERVATIONS ON KEW BOTANIC GARDEN. 



there is no European nation without such an establishment, except 

 England. The most wealthy and most civilised kingdom in Europe 

 offers the only European example of the want of one of the first 

 proofs of wealth and civilisation. France, Prussia, Austria, Bavaria, 

 Russia, Hanover, Holland, not to mention smaller governments, have 

 all botanical gardens, liberally maintained with public funds ; and, 

 what is more curious, Dublin and Edinburgh have similar establish- 

 ments, to which grants of public money have been liberally furnished ; 

 but London has nothing, except a small garden at Chelsea, main- 

 tained by the funds of a private corporation. It has usually happened 

 that botanical gardens have been established to meet the wants of 

 universities ; and so long as London was not the seat of a university, 

 the necessity of establishing a public botanical garden was less press- 

 ing than it is at present. Now that a great number of students are 

 annually collected in London for the purpose of study, it has become 

 indispensable that such means of instruction as a botanical garden 

 affords should be provided. It appears, from returns obtained from 

 the Society of Apothecaries, that annually, on an average of the last 

 three years, as many as 433 medical students have been registered 

 as attending lectures on botany in London : they are compelled to 

 attend these lectures, not only by the Apothecaries' Society and the 

 College of Surgeons, but by the regulations of the army and navy ; 

 and yet this large number of young men, studying the most important 

 of professions, is practically deprived of the advantages of referring 

 to a botanical garden, without which it is impossible that their studies 

 can be prosecuted efficiently. It is true that there is a Botanical 

 Garden at Chelsea belonging to the Apothecaries' Society, but it is 

 not to be expected that the funds of such a corporation, however libe- 

 rally disposed it may be, should suffice for the maintenance of such a 

 botanical garden as the wants of students render necessary. 



But this is only one out of many reasons why a National Botanical 

 Garden should be maintained by Government near London. 



There are many gardens in the British Colonies and dependencies : 

 such establishments exist in Calcutta, Bombay, Saharunpur, in the 

 Isle of France, at Sydney, and in Trinidad, costing many thousands 

 a year : their utility is very much diminished by the want of some 

 system under which they can all be regulated and controlled. They 

 are in a similar condition to the Royal Forcing and Kitchen Gardens 



