536 Letter on the Managen :ni of the Garden 



" Will you venture to say that any one set or course of scientific e^peri- 

 ments has been carried on at the gardens by any officer of the Society, 

 whereby the knowledge of vegetable physiology or the cultivation of plants 

 has been really improved or forwarded ? . . . . 



" Botany is not the end of our institution — our charter was not granted 

 for the cultivation of that science. There is the Linnean Society for bo- 

 tany, and yet some thousands have been thrown away purely in the col- 

 lection of rare plants, without the collecting them being the object of the 

 Institution. How many men and how much money do you think have 

 been spent in growing orchideous plants, merely to figure in the Bulanical 

 Register? Is this a fair mode of expending our money? I am aware 

 that you are averse to this — that you complain, or are said to complain, of 

 the waste of money in growing so many jjarasites in the garden ; but again 

 I say, it is not enough merely to complain, if you do not use your influence 

 on these points. 



" And it may be asked, how have the botanical stores of the Society been 

 used? It is true that some of the periodical magazines were allowed, under 

 restrictions, to figure them, but the permission was given under severe con- 

 ditions. I myself saw a complaint made by one of your officers against a 

 writer in one of the magazines, for having ventured to call a plant after 

 the name of so humble a person as a mere collector — viz. the person who, 

 at the risk of his life, at a guinea per week, had dug it out of the burning 

 sands of Sierra Leone, or the dank pestilential woods of South America. 

 All this is very trumpery for a Society with a charter, a council, and a 

 president, honorary secretary, &c. 



" I have said, what have the Society done with its funds? Is there any 

 thing to show? Has any taste been shown in the distribution of the gar- 

 den ? What is it but a flat square piece, with a snake-shaped ditch trick- 

 ling through it, with three or four straight walks, and three or four 

 meandering ones, a lawn, and a dozen of kidney clumps ? This is as much 

 as its staunchest advocate can say in its praise. Surely you would not like 

 a foreigner, who comes over here open-mouthed to see our gardens — les 

 jardins Anglais, — to go down to Chiswick to see ours as a fair specimen of 

 what an English garden is. How many have been taken there who have 

 stared when told this was the result of the expenditure of vast sums of 

 money, under the guidance of yourself, and assisted by a council ! Surely 

 if we were to spend our money in ornament, we should (if we had no per- 

 son of taste in the Society) have called in those who created such fairy- 

 land as is to be seen at Dropmore, at Lord Farnborough's, or at Ashridge, 

 &c. &c. If some part of the thousands which have been buried at Chis- 

 wick had been put at the disposal of Lady Grenville or Lady Farnborougb, 

 should we have seen such rock-work, such clumps, such walks, such hodge- 

 podge arrangements, as grace and deck our garden ? At all events, we have 

 failed in the ornamental department — that is admitted : how we succeed 

 in the fruit, the periodical exhibitions show 



" I write to you in a style something like that which guided the laying-out 

 of our garden — it is of no moment, so long as I bring the points before you. 



" Most people have some cure for every disease, some theory, some uni- 

 versal panacea : for my part, I really and fairly think the fountain of all the 

 evil in the management, the " origo et fons," is, that we have not any paid 

 RESPONSIBLE OFFICER — uo person who is paid, and who takes the real 

 control and management of the Society's affairs on himself. I am very 

 much prejudiced against any honorary officers. I do not mean that we 

 shall be liable, as the Mendicity Society were, to such claims as were made 

 by their secretary ; but, I take it, every body, or society, pays either in 

 vieal or in malt, and that if our secretary is not paid, we cannot expect that 

 particular attention can be so rigidly exacted in the fulfilment of duties, 

 and, what is worst of all, cannot so strictly conf -le him to his particular 



