108 Horticultural Society and Garden. 



Anniversary Fete, July 23. — Instead of a dinner as heretofore, it was 

 resolved to give a public breakfast in the Society's garden at Chiswick, and 

 to admit the families and friends of the fellows to a certain extent, and 

 under certain regulations determined by a committee, and approved of by 

 a select number of ladies of rank under the designation of " Ladies Pa- 

 tronesses" of the fete. The price of the tickets was one guinea each; 

 " 2973 tickets were issued, and 2843 persons attended. A larger number 

 of Fellows of the Society were present than have ever been known to have 

 met together on any former occasion. Notwithstanding the magnitude 

 of the assemblage, the arrangements and regulations were such as to pre- 

 vent all injury to the garden, not a single plant having been damaged. 

 From the success of the experiment in this instance, the Council are led to 

 hope that a repetition of the meeting in future years will be found highly 

 conducive to the interest of the Society, by exhibiting to the greatest ad- 

 vantage the produce of its labours, and by diffusing more generally among 

 the public a taste for horticultural pursuits. The expenses have been 

 more than defrayed by the receipts ; and, although the Council did not an- 

 ticipate such a result, it is probable that there will be a surplus, out of 

 which it is proposed to erect some building of permanent utility in the 

 garden." (Extracted from a paper suspended in the Society's Meeting-Room.) 



This fete produced a good deal of discussion in the newspapers at the 

 time, and some temporary inconveniences, arising from a deficiency of re- 

 freshments, gave rise to expressions of dissatisfaction ; but, the cause being 

 of a temporary nature, and easily remedied in future, it is not worth re- 

 cording. It was allowed by all parties that such an assemblage of women 

 of beauty, fashion, and rank, had never before been seen in a garden. 

 Objections, however, have been taken to this fete, as a misappropriation of 

 the garden, and as degrading it to the rank of a place of public amuse- 

 ment ; and, as our wish is to be impartial on every subject, we give the fol- 

 lowing letter : — 



The Fete at Chiswick. — Sir, — You have on many occasions shown your- 

 self a warm friend to the Horticultural Society, but, at the same time, 

 manifested that you will not shrink from a bold and independent expression 

 of your sentiments respecting any part of its proceedings which may seem 

 to call for reprehension. 



Trusting that you are prepared to view the matter in the same light 

 with myself, I do hope and expect that your next Number will contain 

 some severe strictures on the notable fete which it seems is to take place 

 at the garden of the Society on the 23d inst. I expect that you will be 

 equally ready with myself to reprobate such a project, and that, through 

 the medium of your Magazine, the subscribers may be excited very gene- 

 rally to protest against the recurrence of such a misappropriation of their 

 own grounds. The Society, if I mistake not, was instituted, and its garden 

 formed, to promote a more general diffusion of scientific and useful know- 

 ledge on the subject of horticulture ; and I, for one, most exceedingly 

 regret that these objects should have been so far lost sight of, that the 

 Society should be made to pander to the sickly appetite for amusement of 

 the fashionable world. It is beneath the dignity and beside the purpose of 

 the Society. If it is designed to bring the Society more into notice, and 

 recommend the garden especially to the liberal patronage of the amateurs 

 of an elegant and useful science, nothing could have been worse conceived 

 than this new project, by which every thing is done to destroy the dis- 

 tinctive character of the garden as a scene for exercising and displaying 

 useful science and ornamental design, and to turn it into a mere locus of 

 exhibiting amusements wholly foreign to these objects. If it is in contem- 

 plation to augment the funds of the Society by such attractions, I must say 

 that it is a paltry scheme, unworthy of the cause, and one which, 1 trust, 



