ATTACK ON HIS FATHEB 175 



William's son must have had particular satisfaction in giving 

 the actual facts. Here was no matter of opinion. The mere 

 recital of facts was damning to the accuser who was in an 

 official position to know them. The tree in question had come 

 to Kew in 1796 ; it had been planted in poor soil and cossetted 

 till its growth was checked and its strength failed ! Sir 

 William, forty-four years later, found it moribund : he left it 

 a strong tree 30 feet high and 90 in spread. The better appear- 

 ance of the Dropmore tree was due to its having been planted 

 at once in more favourable soil and better atmosphere. 



The debate in the House of Lords on July 29 was marked 

 by one piece of disingenuous tactics that was immediately 

 exposed. One speaker was put up to say, inter alia, that the 

 memorial of the men of science in support of Hooker was to 

 be discounted because some of the signatories were moved not 

 by sympathy for Dr. Hooker, nor illwill to Mr. Ayrton, but 

 opposition to Owen's views on a central botanical museum, 

 and other differences. 



This gave Prof. Huxley, as one of the signatories, occasion 

 to write to The Times (July 81, 1872), pointing out that the 

 scientific memorial was in Mr. Gladstone's hands a month 

 before anyone knew of Owen's participation in the affair, and 

 that no divergence of opinion as to the botanical value of Kew 

 touched the points at issue. 1 



Before the debate in the Commons, on August 8, various 

 negotiations took place, through Sir John Lubbock. Mr. 

 Gladstone wrote to him that Ayrton had no intention of giving 

 offence. Hooker responded in kind. Then Mr. Gladstone 



1 ' I am not aware that there is anything (except its strong infusion of 

 hostility towards Dr. Hooker) in the paper presented two months ago by 

 Professor Owen to the First Commissioner which the memorialists might not 

 accept without incurring the risk of a charge of inconsistency. For example, 

 if I thought it a wise way of convincing people of my fitness to express an 

 opinion upon a botanical question, I might speak of the great science of 

 systematic botany as a process of " attaching barbarous binomials to foreign 

 weeds," or I might advocate the conversion of Kew into a sort of colossal 

 kitchen garden, and the transference of its vast collection to the British Museum, 

 without being thereby estopped from entertaining any of the opinions which 

 have been expressed by the memorialists as to the justice or propriety of the 

 dealings of the First Commissioner of Works with Dr. Hooker.' 



Owen's reply in The Times of August 8 may be read as an example of ineffec- 

 tive ingenuity. 



