GARDEXIXG LWDEK WILLIAM AXIJ MARY. 225 



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 1693. 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 fift}' 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 16S4 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 w^ell, 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 tw^o were flourishing 

 in 1S20, 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 

 for his assiduous studies of Natural History. The first volume 

 of his great work on Jamaica and the West Indies, was published 

 in 1707. He was in Jamaica as Physician to the Duke of 

 Albemarle, the Governor, who died there suddenl}-, and Sloane 

 returned to England, having in fifteen months collected a large 

 amount of curiosities, and no less than eight hundred species of 

 plants. He lived at Chelsea all the latter part of his life, and 

 died there in 1752. His fame as a Naturalist is scarcely less 



■■■■ Rny'i, I'/iilosophicdl L.'tft'i's, 171S. 



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