42 TREE-PLANTING. 



garden in Holborn. The only surviving physic-garden 

 which now remains in London, is, I believe, the one 

 left by Sir Hans Sloane to the Apothecaries' Com- 

 pany, which now abuts the Thames Embankment at 

 Chelsea, which the writer had to inspect a couple of 

 years or so back, in his capacity of grand juryman, 

 upon the occasion of a difference between the Apothe- 

 caries' Company and Board of Works, which was 

 settled amicably by arrangement, and did not finally 

 come on for trial. To the botanists and apothecaries 

 of London we are indebted at that period for the 

 first accounts we have of the introduction of many 

 of the timber trees with which we are now commonly 

 familiar. 



Doctor Compton, who was Bishop of London 

 from 1675 to 1713, introduced a great number of 

 exotic trees, chiefly from America. The Botanic 

 Garden of Edinburgh was formed in 1680, and in 1683 

 the cedar of Lebanon was introduced into it. 

 Parkinson, the apothecary to James L, a physician of 

 London, recorded in 1629 the introduction of the 

 larch and the horse chestnut, but who the introducers 

 were is not stated. 



The writings of Linnaeus, Miller, Bradly, and 

 others, and the consequent spread of botanical know- 

 ledge, was the means of exciting attention to this 

 subject, and a taste sprang up amongst the wealthiest 

 and best educated classes for the cultivation of plants 

 and trees, especially by some of the chief landowners 

 in the kingdom, and large plantations were formed at 

 Sion, Croome, Goodwood, and Claremont. It is 

 stated that the Countess of Haddington took such an 

 absorbing interest in improvements by plantation, 



