292 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND. 



growth of trees, and try experiments. He felt the want of 

 some sti.mulus to horticulture, and thought the formation 

 of a Society "whose object should be the improvement of 

 Horticulture in all its branches,"* would have that effect. 

 Accordingly, with the co-operation of Sir Joseph Banks, he 

 organized the Horticultural Society, and a meeting to 

 inaugurate it was held on March 7th, 1804. The first 

 President was the Earl of Dartmouth, John Wedgewood the 

 first Treasurer, and Cleeve the first Secretary, who was soon 

 superseded by R. A. Salisbury. Price, the Clerk of the 

 Linnaean Society, was also engaged as Clerk to the New 

 Horticultural. In 1809, on April lyth, the charter of 

 incorporation was signed by King George the Third. The 

 next year, the first number of the Transactions was brought out. 

 These quarto volumes were elaborately got up, and were so 

 costly that the sum spent on them by 1830 amounted to 

 25,250^ In 1811, on the death of the Earl of Dartmouth, 

 Thomas Andrew Knight was elected President. Under his 

 energetic presidency, the affairs of the Society prospered. In 

 1818 their first experimental gardens were started at Kensington 

 and at Ealing, but these were discontinued when the Society 

 obtained a long lease of the Chiswick gardens four years later, 

 and carried on their experiments there. 



About the same time the Society began its greatest work, 

 which was not only the receiving of plants from abroad, but 

 the sending out of collectors also. The first plant of Wistaria 

 (Wistaria sinensis) was sent by Mr. Reeves, from China, in 

 1818, and the original specimen is still at Chiswick, and 

 other Chinese plants Peonies, Roses and Chrysanthemums- 

 were also received from abroad. The first collector sent out 

 was George Don, who went to West Africa, and on to South 

 America, in 1822-3. J onn Forbes was sent to East Africa 

 the same year ; he died while going up the Zambesi, but not 

 before he had despatched home many new species. John 



* The Book of the Royal Horticultural Society. By Andrew Murray, 1863. 

 \ From Notes kindly furnished by the present Assistant Secretary to the 

 Society, Mr. John Weathers. 



