CHAPTER V 



MODERN BOTANIC GARDENS 



THE modern botanic garden differs completely 

 from its prototype of old in that its object and 

 intention is national and popular no less than scien- 

 tific. Let us take one which from beginnings 

 which had primarily perhaps no grander motive 

 in view than private gratification has grown in 

 course of years to be the head and chief of modern 

 botanic gardens, not in England only, but in the 

 world. Not many years ago a foolish antagonism 

 was in some danger of being set up between scien- 

 tific botanists and the gardening craft. A glimpse 

 into the past history of Kew, showing something 

 of its rise and its fluctuations before attaining its 

 proud position of the great public English garden 

 of the present day, may serve to show how mis- 

 taken would be any want of sympathy or rivalry 

 between those who should work shoulder to shoul- 

 der in all friendliness for the common weal. The 

 gardener, in truth, owes more than can ever be 

 repaid to the botanist. 



The village of Kew, with its immediate sur- 

 roundings, has been classic ground since, and per- 

 haps long before, the days when Queen Elizabeth 

 there " knighted a rich gentleman " by name of 



