202 COLLEGE GARDENS 



The Botanic Garden might also, unless hampered by a 

 gdosia di mesticre, make annual distributions of plants among 

 College gardens, and thus endeavour to raise the quality of 

 the plants grown in the latter. 



The University Gazette annually publishes long lists extend- 

 ing from Argotti to Zagrabia, and from Sheffield to Shipbur, 

 of institutions and of people who contribute to, and therefore 

 presumably also receive plants from, the Botanic Garden. 

 But from these lists the names of Oxford Colleges are in- 

 variably absent, and there is no reason that this should be so. 

 Many Colleges would willingly supplement the exhibits at 

 the Botanic Garden by plants of their own growing, and thus 

 render services to horticulture or to arboriculture, meanwhile 

 enhancing the beauty and interest of their own grounds. 

 College Bursars and Garden Masters, although there have 

 been and are splendid exceptions, have not on the whole 

 proved themselves skilled in the care of trees, and in con- 

 sequence we have few really large specimens of trees in 

 Oxford ; but where they do occur, none can deny that there 

 is no fitter association than that of venerable buildings and 

 noble trees, both endued with the dignity of age and the 

 memories of the past. 



But a College garden must always keep its individuality ; 

 its beauty must be the outward sign of the fostering care 

 of those to whom, for the time, it belongs ; it must show, as 

 Goethe has expressed it, " Dass nicht ein wissenschaftlicher 

 Gartner, sondern ein fiihlendes Herz den Plan gezeichnet." 



The idea of co-operation is not new. It was put into 

 practical execution fifty years ago, when W. H. Baxter planted 

 several trees in Christ Church Walk, in situations indicated 

 in detail in the 1866 edition of Dr. Daubeny's GUIDE ; but 

 most have perished, and the survivors bear the marks of 

 having passed through a prolonged period of neglect, a period 

 which, judging from the abundant signs of antiseptic treatment 

 of scars and wounds of the trees, has passed away. 



