46 SCIENTIFIC WORK, 1860-1865 



to reorganize the whole establishment which is worked to 

 death, and I dread a breakdown of our new Curator, who, 

 what with Garden-duties and accounts, works 16 hours a 

 day : as for myself, who have never done less, this is all very 

 well, but persons not accustomed to it cannot stand it as 

 matters stand, neither he nor I could leave Kew a week. 



Indeed Garden reforms had begun a couple of months 

 earlier : 



We have been robbed much by our own people [he tells 

 Darwin on April 7]; and I discharged two foremen, dismissed 

 half a dozen gardeners and labourers, and clapped one fellow 

 in jail for six months. All this is not very agreeable work, 

 but we have really a first rate Curator now (John Smith the 

 second) and I am anxious to put everything straight for him 

 to go on without troubling me. 



The late gardeners' neglect during the winter had let many 

 plants perish. In June Darwin is told : ' I hope to have a 

 Botanical Garden worth looking at in a couple of years.' 



Ever full of hospitality as he was and delighting to ask his 

 friends to come and be shown the wonders of which he was 

 justly proud, Hooker found that the uninvited ' torrent of 

 visitors,' scientific or otherwise, to the Gardens cut up his time 

 terribly. He often breaks out despairingly to Darwin e.g. 

 (May 28, 1862) : 



I see an everlasting round of visitors whom I (for the most 

 part) wish at Jericho. I broke three solemn engagements 

 to-day; 



And (September 20, 1862) : 



I am frightfully busy and inundated with d d visitors. 

 There goes the bell just as I wrote. 



It was at least a relief that the Gardens continued to be 

 closed to the public in the forenoon. 



The months brought no relief: In the summer of 1863 it 

 was not only that ' we are overwhelmed and almost knocked 



