Garden Botany. 55 



lony ; another garden exists at Ceylon. That formed at 

 the Isle of France, by the French government, is still main- 

 tained by our own; and an establishment for the growth of 

 the native productions of New South Wales is in full activity 

 at Port Jackson. In the West Indies there are botanic gar- 

 dens at Trinidad and St. Vincent's, from the latter of which 

 numerous valuable importations have been frequently re- 

 ceived ; but we understand it is now neglected. In Jamaica a 

 garden and a horticultural society are in the course of being 

 formed. 



Now let us turn our eyes to the private protection and assist- 

 ance, which botany has received in Great Britain, and we 

 shall find nothing like it in any other part of the world. To 

 pass over the garden of Sherard at Eltham, which was copi- 

 ously stored with plants, of which more than four hundred 

 new species were published by Dillenius in 1732, no one can 

 have forgotten the noble garden founded at Chelsea by Sir 

 Hans Sloane, and attached to the company of apothecaries. 

 In this garden, which at the time of Miller was in the meri- 

 dian of its glory, all those contributions which are now dispers- 

 ed among the public, were, as it were, concentrated, and the 

 number of unknown plants which were first reared in its hot- 

 houses was very considerable. From the time of Miller, the 

 taste for garden botany in England has been rapidly increasing, 

 and the collections of private individuals have been extended, 

 until some of them rival in extent the large public establish- 

 ments of the Continent. Besides the botanic gardens of the 

 two English universities, one of which, that of Cambridge, 

 was, in the time of the late Mr. Donn, among the most cele- 

 brated in Europe, most important public gardens have been 

 founded by the liberality and zeal of private individuals at 

 Glasgow, at Liverpool, and at Hull. The two former of 

 these are now in so flourishing a state, that the first men- 

 tioned is said to contain no less than eight thousand spe- 

 cies of plants, and that of Liverpool is perhaps more exten- 

 sive. 



The taste thus excited by the zeal of amateurs has naturally 

 rendered the introduction of rare plants an important object 

 of commerce, and has induced individuals to risk large sums 

 of money in the business of nurserymen. The late Mr. Lee 

 maintained for a long time, in partnership with the Empress 

 Josephine of France, a collector at the Cape of Good Hope, 

 by whom an immense number of new plants was introduced, 

 and similar expeditions have been undertaken by other enter- 

 prizing nurserymen. The noble establishment of the Messrs. 



e 4 



