PRESTON. ALSTON 283 



instruction in a public garden. His Catalogue is now a book 

 of some rarity of great rarity in complete state owing to the 

 number of cancel pages and its reproduction at the present 

 time would have interest alike scientific and historic. It is the 

 first published record of a collection of cultivated plants in 

 Scotland. It tells us the plants which were recognised as 

 indigenous at its date, and from its record we can by correlation 

 with information otherwise obtainable discover the time of 

 introduction to Scotland of alien plants, and thus obtain a 

 basis for gauging their influence on the native Flora as we know 

 it now. 



Charles Preston who stepped into the University Chair of 

 Botany vacated in 1706 by Sutherland, was a medical man, 

 an active correspondent of Sloan, Pettiver, and other scientific 

 men in the south. On his death in 1712, after a short tenure 

 of office, George Preston his brother succeeded him and filled 

 the chair until 1739. Both of the Prestons seem to have 

 been chiefly interested in the Materia Medica side of Botany 

 and their teaching was on the lines of it. They are referred 

 to by their contemporaries as men of botanical knowledge 

 and of critical judgment, and their correspondence indicates 

 that they were in touch with the botanical life of their time. 

 Their work in teaching was always in rivalry with that at the 

 Royal Physick Garden. At first no doubt it was effective 

 and useful owing to Sutherland's neglect of his garden, but 

 when a capable active scientific Professor was placed in charge 

 of this Garden the case for such rivalry and duplication of 

 effort ceased, and it is no surprise therefore to find that when 

 a vacancy occurred in 1739 the University Chair was filled by 

 the appointment of the King's Botanist in Charge of the Royal 

 Physick Garden, who was then Dr Charles Alston. And this 

 combination continues to our own time by mutual consent of the 

 Crown and the University. 



Sutherland's retirement in 171 5 from the Royal Physick 

 Garden four years before his death, which took place in 17 19 

 when he was over 80 years of age, may have been deter- 

 mined by his incapacity for the duties, but it is probable 

 other influences were effective especially as the office of King's 



