NA TURE 



6i 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1875 



THE OXFORD BOTANIC GARDEN 



EVERYONE who knows Oxford remembers the 

 quaint old Botanic Garden by Magdalen Bridge 

 at the foot of the High Street, Nearly two centuries and 

 a half have passed since St. James's Day, 1632, when the 

 Vice-Chancellor and the authorities of the University 

 walked in piocession from St. Mary's Church to lay the 

 foundation of the main gateway afterwards completed by 

 Inigo Jones. The expense of this and of the high stone 

 walls which surround the garden and protect it from the 

 wind exceeded 5,cco/., a large sum even in those days, 

 but which was provided by the munificence of Lord 

 Danby, who afterwards bequeathed some property as an 

 endowment. 



The Oxford Botanic Garden" is the oldest in Britain, 

 and there are but two or three of earlier date in other 

 countries. The space of this article^would be insufficient 

 to do justice to the place which belongs to it and to its 

 successive professors in English scientific historj-. A few 

 only of its traditions will be enough to show that it has 

 always been a place for study as well as for instruction. 

 Evelyn visited it in 1654, when "the sensitive plant 

 was shown as a great worder." Twenty years after 

 (1676) Sir Thomas Millington, the Savilian Professor, first 

 divined the iundamental fact of sexual reproduction in 

 flowering plants. Five years later (1681) Bobart, "over- 

 seer cf the ph)sick gardens," experimentally demon- 

 strated the function of pollen. At the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century the Oxford Botanic Garden solved 

 another great problem. Although Ferns bear no flowers, 

 the world shared the opinion of Columna that they must 

 have flower-produced seeds, because, amongst other 

 reasons, " the book cf Genesis said nothing about 

 plants being destitute of them," Fern seed then came 

 to be regarded as existent although invisible, and then by 

 a not unusual transition as the cause of invisibility in its 

 possessors. Morison (1715) disposed of these fancies by 

 demonstrating that the asexual spores of Ferns were 

 actually their means of reproduction. In 1736 the garden 

 — then under the charge of Dillenius, the editor of the 

 third edition of Ray's " Synopsis," and the author of the 

 "Historia Muscorum"— was visited by Linnseus. Here 

 he resided for some weeks, and many particulars have 

 come down to us of discussions amongst the living plants 

 in which he endeavoured to convert Dillenius to his newly 

 " published Sexual System. Passing over Sibthorp and his 

 splendid work on the Botany of Greece, it must not be 

 forgotten that in the Oxford Botanic Garden Daubeny 

 anticipated Draper in demonstrating (1836) that the light 

 belonging to the red end of the spectrum is most effectual 

 in promoting the evolution of oxygen by plants. There 

 is something perhaps characteristic of the habits of forty 

 years ago in his using port wine as one of his absorptive 

 media. 



It might be supposed that a place so venerable in its 

 aspect, so interesting in its traditions, would be a source 

 of some pride to the members of an ancient University, 

 and that they would be anxious to give it the needful sup- 

 port to enable it to be as useful now as it has been in the 

 past. Unhappily, the facts show the reverse of this. 

 ^ Vol. xui.— No. 317 , 



Notwithstanding the efforts of the present professor, the 

 garden and its buildings have been for some time allowed 

 by the University to sink into neglect, and it is now pro- 

 posed — mainly at the instance of the Regius Professor of 

 Medicine — to abandon the site altogether and create a new 

 garden in the modern suburb of Oxford and in the vicinity 

 of the New Museum. 



It will, of course, be assumed by all who are unac- 

 quainted with the real state of the case that the present 

 site is quite unfitted for its purpose ; yet there is the very 

 highest authority in such matters for saying that the facts 

 are all the other way, and the Pro'^essorof Botany strongly 

 ! opposes the removal Soil and situation are all that can 

 I be desired, and far better than can be obtained in the 

 j " Parks," where the soil is poor and the ground is wind- 

 swept. A moderate outlay compared with that which 

 j removal would entail would make the present garden an 

 ! ail but ideal establishment for the prosecution of every 

 : branch of modern botanical research, while, if half a mile 

 i distant from the professorial suburb, it is on the other 

 j hand ready of access to most of the colleges, where under- 

 graduates reside. 



The argument used in favour of the removal is the ad- 

 i visability of bringing together all the scientific institutions 

 i of the University. In pursuance of this policy an astronomi- 

 j cal observatory has also been built in the Parks at consider- 

 able cost, although Oxford already possessed in the Rad- 

 cliffe Obser\'atory an institution of this kind. If it were 

 I profitable for students to rush in hot haste from astrono- 

 j mical instruction to the lectures of the Botany Professor, 

 such a juxtaposition might be desirable. But this sort of 

 j omnivorous study is a thing to be discouraged. In the 

 I present state of science an hour now and again spent in 

 j a professor's lecture-room is of the slenderest value. 

 Oral teaching must be supplemented by workroom study, 

 and if Botany in its modern aspects is to be effectively 

 studied in Oxfcrd at all, students must be encouraged to 

 give to it considerable portions of whole days rather than 

 a mere sporadic attendance. This demand for centralis- 

 ation does not make itself felt Ln the other studies of the 

 University, and as regards proximity to the Radcliffe 

 Library, the Botanic Garden already has a fair library of 

 its own. 



If the truth must be spoken, this unhappy scheme is 

 one mere phase of the feverish cesthetic activity which 

 in modern Oxford seems to have taken the place of en- 

 thusiasm for learning. This is not the place to criticise 

 the New Museum erected at vast cost for the scientific 

 studies of the University, but we may challenge any im- 

 partial man of science to stand before that fanciful build- 

 ing, half municipal, half monastic in its aspect, and fail 

 to see that it bears the impress of the fleeting artistic 

 aspirations of a period rather than of the sober needs of 

 scientific study. The same impulse which in buUding a 

 laboratory must needs reproduce the abbot's kitchen at 

 Glastonbury will now, if it have its swing, transform a 

 botanic garden into a pleasure ground, in which the needs 

 of study must once more be subordinated to artistic effect, 

 and conservatories will be built not so much to grow 

 plants as to show how such things can be constructed in 

 the neo- Gothic manner. Forming part of the " Parks,'' 

 and contiguous to a suburb of villa residences, it will 

 immediately become a pleasant lounge, and the mem- 



