506 KEW GARDENS. \July, 



drons (especially the Indian ones), are all in a most satisfactory 

 state. ... 



TJie Museum of Economic Botany. 



It has been the privilege of Kew Gardens to remove the stigma, 

 long and not unjustly cast upon scientific botany, viz. that it is 

 of but small practical use ; and this was happily effected when 

 the first Museum Avas founded, ten years ago. It is obvious that 

 the spectacle in the garden, of those living plants which yield 

 substances valuable in commerce, in the arts, in medicine, and 

 in domestic economy, when coupled with a museum where those 

 very products, in different stages of preparation, are displayed, 

 must be usefid. The most precious gifts of Nature, shown both 

 in their rude condition and as adapted to his uses by the inge- 

 nuity of man, cannot fail, when thus combined, to prove of great 

 and telling importance, fraught with instruction, and appealing 

 forcibly to the eye and the understanding. And this leads me 

 to the great event of the past year, viz. the opening, in May, of 

 a new and second Museum, which is a spacious three-storied 

 building, containing, in its three large apartments on each floor, 

 11,000 superficial feet of glazed mahogany cabinets, from one 

 to two feet deep, besides numerous large objects not requiring 

 protection, and an extensive series of botanical drawings, en- 

 gravings, and portraits, which are suspended on the walls. Go- 

 vernment has, fi'om the first, been liberal towards the museum, 

 and the interest which the First Commissioner took in the 

 matter has caused the new edifice to be well adapted to its pur- 

 poses, for it is lightsome, and so spacious as to permit the objects 

 to be arranged both systematically and instructively. The old 

 museum contains glazed cabinets measuring 6000 superficial feet. 

 One has only to see the immense numbers of people, from the 

 prince to the peasant, who visit these collections, and to be told 

 that, almost every day, application is made for information respect- 

 ing some part or other of them, the woods, the fibres, the drugs, 

 dyes, etc., to appreciate the practical utility of these museums. 



During the past year the important series of specimens, ob- 

 tained by gift and purchase, from the " Exposition Universelle" 

 at Paris, and the valuable donations of the Commissioners for 

 our " Great Exhibition'' in 1851, have been received and de- 

 posited in their proper places. 



