THE WISLEY GARDEN 55 



to impart to others the results of his own hard- 

 won experience. Who can estimate all the value 

 of the knowledge thus passed on, to those who 

 love their gardens, and look upon them as one 

 main source of health and refreshment amidst the 

 dust and fray of daily life ? 



At length it fell upon a sad day that the garden 

 at Oakwood lost its master, and it was whispered 

 soon after that the estate was to be sold. Then 

 a very happy event occurred ; but to explain how 

 it came about it is necessary to glance briefly at 

 another side of the story. 



The old experimental garden at Chiswick, be- 

 longing to the Royal Horticultural Society, which 

 for fifty years had done excellent practical work, 

 was doomed. Situated in earlier days on an open 

 site, and with clear air in which all testing of new 

 varieties and other experimental garden operations 

 could be satisfactorily carried on, and also being 

 within easy reach of London, it had once possessed 

 every qualification for its purpose, and, by old 

 association, was dear to the heart of every horti- 

 culturist. But London fogs and the encroachments 

 of continual building threatened to destroy its use- 

 fulness in the near future, and there was much 

 exercise of spirit over ways and means and the 

 best course to be taken. One happy day the knot 

 of the difficulty was severed once and for all. It 

 was announced that Sir Thomas Hanbury, himself 

 an ardent lover of plants and the owner of the 

 famous garden at La Mortola, near Mentone, had 

 bought the Wisley estate with the intention of pre- 

 senting it to the Royal Horticultural Society as 



