with th: 



THE INDEX KEWENSIS 239 



ith three columns containing some fifty names each, a total 

 of about 375,000 entries. 



The officialdom of the period was still characteristically 

 left cold by this rich gift to a national home of science. 





To Charles Darwin 



Jai^uary 19, 1882. 



Dear Darwin, — The enclosed requires no answer. The 

 history of it is this. I, as a matter of course, informed the 

 Board of your munificent offer, showing what a grand aid it 

 would be to our own work, as well as to science in general, 

 and how honorable to Kew. The First Commissioner (one 

 of your d — d Liberals) wrote a characteristically illiberal and 

 ill-bred minute on it, addressed to me, in effect warning 

 me against your putting the Board to any expense ! — and 

 this though I expressly stated that ' your offer involved 

 the Board in no expense or other responsibility whatever.' 

 I flared up at this, and told the Secretary, whom I saw 

 on the subject, that the F.C., rather than send me such 

 a minute, should have written a letter of thanks to you. 

 I suppose that this shamed him, and he has taken me 

 at my word, though I did not seriously contemplate such 

 action. 



In the administration of Kew the years brought no relaxa- 

 tion to the Director. The general lines for the development 

 of the Gardens had long been laid down ; the same operations 

 went on, only on an annually increasing scale ; development 

 from within proceeded unceasingly, while correspondence with 

 collectors and gardens overseas grew with the central im- 

 portance of Kew. ' The ordinary correspondence, etc' he 

 assures his friend Maw (March 24, 1882), ' gets more extra- 

 ordinary every year.' At that moment, for instance, all the 

 Cinchona papers relating to the cultivation of both kinds, and 

 the policy of making both quinine and the febrifuge in India, 

 were coming to Hooker to be reported on. The making of new 

 sections, the re-arrangement of the old, went on busily, for 

 the progress of science, inverting the familiar proverb, makes 

 the better the enemy of the good, and leaves the excellences 



