6o MY LIFE [Chap. 



I received one solitary letter from a scientific man sup- 

 porting my views — Mr. G. R. Crotch, of the University 

 Library, Cambridge, a very good naturalist and reasoner. 

 But the process of forcing on expenditure for scientific pur- 

 poses has gone on increasing : the Challenger expedition, with 

 its enormously costly publication of results in thirty-seven 

 large quarto volumes, of not the least interest to any but 

 specialists in biology and physics ; the new buildings at South 

 Kensington for the Science and Art Department ; the enor- 

 mous and unending increase of new buildings for the housing 

 of all the output of the modern book trade, and of the 

 hundreds and thousands of daily and weekly newspapers, and 

 the monthly magazines and endless trade and art and specialist 

 periodicals — huge mountains of rubbish that each succeeding 

 year will render more utterly impossible of examination by 

 any human being who may live in the next century. In 

 connection with South Kensington, the suggestion has been 

 put forward that a million of money is required to properly 

 house the various scientific departments there ; while, most 

 recent of all, there has been an influential request for an 

 anthropometrical survey and sickness registration of the whole 

 population, at a cost comparable with that of the geological 

 survey ! the grounds being that it is the only way to ascertain 

 if there is any physical deterioration of the people, and thus 

 enable the Government to stave off any fundamental remedial 

 measures by the excuse of want of further information ! 



Among the many pleasant episodes of my life was my 

 connection with Mr. Augustus Mongredien, a member of the 

 Corn Exchange, a writer on free trade, and author of a book 

 published by Murray in 1870 — " Trees and Shrubs for English 

 Gardens." When I got my chalk-pit at Grays in 1871, built 

 a house there, and began to take a great interest in gardening, 

 I bought this book, and in consequence wrote to the author. 

 Soon afterwards he invited me to visit him at Heatherside, 

 on the Bagshot sands, where he had formed a nursery of 

 several hundred acres, planted with a great variety of trees 

 and shrubs then just coming to maturity. He then formed 



