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PREFACE 



A short time ago the writer was asked to 

 represent the Royal College of Physicians on 

 the Managing Committee of the Chelsea Physic 

 Garden now under Government control. 



The request was readily complied with. It 

 afforded an opportunity of learning the long 

 and honourable history of the Garden, and of 

 reading the records- of its public- spirited 

 supporters, and of its rare trees and flowers. 



The story may interest some who were 

 unaware of the existence of the Garden. 



Many must have found, with the writer, an 

 absorbing pleasure in exploring some minute 

 fraction of the great human past of under- 

 standing something of " Yesterday, its aim and 

 reason." There is in it all the novelty of a 

 journey in an unknown country. 



This short journey has been exceptionally 

 pleasant ; for it has taken the writer among 

 men of gentle and attractive lives the old 

 naturalists and botanists of the Physic Garden 

 men who lived near Nature devoted to their 

 dear Mother Earth. 



F. D. D. 

 JULY, 1922. 



541S22 



AGHICULTU2E 



