306 HISTORY OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN. 
the dilapidated condition of the plant-houses, of which we have 
frequent mention in contemporary records, compelled the 
Government to give attention to the urgent representations of 
the need of capital expenditure upon them, the question of 
removal of the Garden to a better site was again raised, and, as we 
may conjecture, would be pressed with insistance by McNab. 
The story of the negotiations and controversies in regard to 
this and of their ultimate issue will be told in the general account 
of the history of the Garden in a later number of these “ Notes.” 
For the purpose of this notice of William McNab it is necessary to 
say only that the movement for a new site was successful, and 
after the abandonment of one of nine and a half acres purchased in 
1815 for a new Garden to the east of Holyrood Palace, an area of 
fourteen acres at Inverleith, which the Garden still occupies (with 
ground subsequently added), was acquired by the Barons of 
Exchequer, and thither the plants of the Garden in Leith Walk 
were brought during the years 1821 and 1822.! 
The work which such a transference entailed could have fallen 
into no abler hands than those of William McNab, and we have 
evidence in abundance of his skill in disposing of plants in the 
open to the best advantage horticulturally and, at the same time, 
artistically, and also of the correctness of his conceptions in the 
designing of houses for plant-propagation; Some of these 
houses erected at this time are now in use, modified no doubt in 
details in accordance with improved methods, but in their main 
features having the form of the period of their erection. Some 
of the trees moved to the new Garden were of considerable size, 
Garden is likely to be well adapted for an ornamental cemetery. The ins — 
to it as a garden was, that it would be rather too much exposed t this 
forms a strong eae’ in the other view. The yew, the Seiiee a a the 
Norway spruce (which in our climate must chiefly take the place of the cypress) 
would all flourish exceedingly in this portion of the King’s Park ; and the bay- 
laurel, the holly, Irish ivy, —_ other kinds of <n shrubs would likewise 
prosper well amid the tombs 
1 Tt was in 1823, I think, that the last fragment of our Royal Botanical Garden 
was removed from its situation on the west side of Leith Walk, and that the trans- 
plantation of the whole to its present site at Inverleith was completed. No garden 
coul ade to walk a mile with less injury to its health. Scarcely a single plant 
or tree was lost, and after pte from their first sickness, they looked fresher 
and prouder than ever. Dr. Graham, the Professor, was a respectable botanist, and 
a good teacher, and in - first ae McNab, he had a most admirab 
man.—Cockburn, Memorials, p. 411. 
