Historic NOTICE. vii 
unsuccessful Jacobite plot to seize the Castle, he did not hold 
the office long. 
He was succeeded in 1716 by Charles Alston (1683-1760). 
In 1724 the College Garden, having fallen into disorder, was 
turned to other uses; and in 1729, George Preston having 
retired, the Town Council appointed, as his successor in the 
charge of the Town’s Garden and as Professor of Botany in the 
University, Charles Alston, who as King’s Botanist had already 
the charge of the Royal Garden and was Regius Professor of 
Botany. Through him, after separation for a quarter of a 
century, the Royal Garden and the Town’s Garden were again 
combined under one Keeper, and the Regius Professorship of 
Botany and the University Professorship were similarly united. 
They have so continued to the present time. 
In 1763, the Royal Garden and the Town’s Garden proving 
too small and otherwise unsatisfactory, John Hope (1725-1786), 
who had succeeded Alston in his offices in 1761, proposed a 
transference of the two to a more congenial site in which they 
could be combined. At first it was intended to secure ground to 
the south of George Watson’s Hospital—the area upon which 
much of the present Royal Infirmary is built—but this not being 
Possible, five acres of ground to the north side of Leith Walk, 
below the site now occupied by Haddington Place, were chosen. 
As Hope proposed to transfer the collections in the Royal 
Garden to the new Garden he was able to secure the support of 
the Treasury to his scheme, and the selected ground was leased 
in name of the Barons of Exchequer. At the same time the 
Town Council agreed to contribute £25 annually to the support 
of the Garden, this sum being the amount of rent expected from 
the letting of the old Town’s Garden. The plants from both 
Gardens were transferred to the ground at Leith Walk, and from 
this date there has been only one Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. 
The site thus secured for the Garden proved, however, only a 
temporary one. 
Daniel Rutherford (1749-1819), who in 1786 succeeded 
Hope in his offices, cast about him for a spot in which more 
ground would be available for the extension of the Garden ; 
and eventually in 1815 nine and a half acres of the land lying 
to the east of Holyrood Palace, and forming the ground of 
