70 SCIENCE. 
side of this fence smoking was formerly 
prohibited, while it was permitted, if not 
encouraged, on the other side; with the dis- 
appearance of the fence has died out the 
prohibition, for old customs do die even in 
conservative England. 
Another feature lacking at Kew and em- 
phasized by its presence at other places, 
notably, the gardens at Berlin, is the sharp 
definition of distinctive floras illustrating 
the modern principles of ecology. Nowhere 
could the contrasts of two strange floras 
be more strikingly shown than in the 
smaller greenhouse known as the ‘succu- 
leut house;’ here are two peculiar floras 
magnificently represented, the cactus flora 
of the Sonoran region of southwest America 
and the characteristic Euphorbiaceous flora 
of southern Africa. The geographic con- 
trast of plants closely similar in habit but 
widely separated in their botanical charac- 
ters might be most beautifully and forcibly 
illustrated here, but the opportunity is en- 
tirely lost, for the plants are commingled 
instead of contrasted and only the insignifi- 
cant labels give to the expert the clue to 
this marvellous principle of plant distribu- 
tion, while to the ordinary observer a most 
effective object lesson is entirely lost. Per- 
haps it may justly be said that with all 
their success at colonization, the principles 
of plant distribution are not so thoroughly 
grasped at Kew as they have been brought 
out at the German botanical garden 
through the skill of Professor Engler and 
his associates. 
The museums, too, at Kew are greatly 
crowded and one leaves them with confused 
notions of their significance. This arises : 
first, from the fact that the buildings are 
small and two of them are badly broken up 
into a number of small rooms, and thus are 
not at all adapted to their present use ; sec- 
ondly, from the enormous mass of material 
crowded into insufficient space; thirdly, 
from combining the economic series that at- 
[N. S. Vox. X. No. 238. 
tempts to show the legion of plant products 
useful to man, with the taxonomic series 
that attempts to show the structural rela- 
tions of plants to each other ; and, finally, 
from the absence of any modern biological 
principle governing the arrangement of the 
collection. Even in the third museum, 
where the species of woods are illustrated, 
the collections, because of these features we 
have noticed, are vastly inferior to the mag- 
nificent Jesup collection in the American 
Museum of Natural History, where the 
value of rational methods of displaying a 
collection are added to the intrinsic value 
of the collection itself. At Kew the ar- 
rangement detracts from a collection which 
is the inferior of our own. 
Having thus located Kew Gardens geo- 
graphically and historically and noted some 
of its internal features, let us consider some 
of the results that are accomplished through 
its agency that we may arrive more hap- 
pily at the raison d’étre of the existence of 
botanical gardens in general. 
1. The Kew Gardens represent the best 
expression of horticultural work in Great 
Britain. Many of the most noted garden- 
ers in the Dominion, at home and abroad, 
are men who have been trained at Kew, and 
a succession of young men and women are 
continually being trained for this work 
from year to year. The advantages of such 
a garden training are evident to young gar- 
deners, and there is always a larger wait- 
ing list of applicants than the work re- 
quired can possibly supply. Kew is rec- 
ognized as the authoritative center for hor- 
ticultural work, and, interested as she 
is in introducing new forms from exotic 
sources, cannot fail to exert a marked in- 
influence on horticulture. Many plants find 
their way hither for authentic naming, and 
through the agency of Kew many plants of 
value for decorative purposes are brought 
to notice, not only in the British Isles, but 
throughout the world-wide British colonies. 
