232 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



committee of twenty-one assistants, thirty liverymen, and twenty 

 yeomanry. They built a greenhouse which cost them 138 in 

 1680. Two years after, Dr. Herman, of Leyden, visited the 

 garden and offered to exchange some plants. To effect this, 

 Watts was sent over to Holland. In 16)85 the expenses of the 

 garden, besides Watts' salary, reached 130, so the Company, 

 unable to carry on the garden at that rate, arranged to give 

 Watts 100 a year, out of which he was to keep up the garden, 

 and he was allowed to sell fruit and plants. The same sort of 

 arrangement was afterwards made with his successor, Doody, a 

 good botanist, and famous collector of native plants, chiefly 

 cryptogams, who was given the post in i693-/ In 1722, Sir Hans 

 Sloane, having acquired land at Chelsea which included the 

 garden, gave the site to the Apothecaries' Company, on condition 

 that it was always to be a Physic Garden, and Philip Miller was 

 made the curator. Another condition of Sir Hans Sloane's, was 

 that the Company should present fifty new plants annually to the 

 Royal Society (of which he was President) until they had given 

 two thousand. They, however, continued the annual gift until 

 1773, and gave in all 2550 species. 



Sir Hans Sloane had for many years taken a lively interest 

 in the garden. In 1684 he wrote Ray an account of a visit which 

 he paid to it.* " I was the other day at Chelsea, and find that 

 the artifices used by Mr. Watts have been very effectual for the 

 Preservation of his plants, insomuch that this severe winter has 

 scarce killed any of his fine plants. One thing I much wonder to 

 see Cedrus Montis Libani . . . should thrive so well, as without 

 pot or green House, to be able to propagate itself by Layers this 

 spring. Seeds sown last Autumn have as yet thriven very well." 

 There were four cedars planted in 1683, and two were flourishing 

 in 1820, and one remains in 1894. Before this visit to the garden, 

 he must have paid many others, as he made most of his botanical 

 studies there, and was encouraged and assisted by Ray. Sloane 

 (born 1660) had been abroad and studied medicine at Montpelier, 

 where a Botanical Garden had existed since 1598. Long years 

 before he conveyed the land to the apothecaries, he was famous 



* Ray's Philosophical Letters, 1718. 



