Domestic Notices • — England, 275 



" The library consists of about 1900 volumes, comprehending the valuable 

 and curious collection of botanical books presented by Consul Sherard, con- 

 sisting of about 600 volumes ; that originally belonging to Bobart, one of the 

 keepers of the garden, and probably others, which maybe estimated altogether 

 at about 280 volumes ; the library of Dr. John Sibthorp, amounting to about 

 750 volumes ; and the remainder bequeathed by the late Professor Williams, 

 or given to the Sherardian library by his executrix. The books appear in 

 many cases to be suffering severely from damp, owing to their having remained 

 for many years at the farther extremities of a room heated by only a single 

 fireplace at its centre. The library also contains a most valuable and exten- 

 sive series of dried plants obtained from various quarters ; amongst the donors 

 of which I may specify Dr. Morrison, who first held the professorship, and 

 Consul Sherard, who endowed it, and whose Herbarium alone is said to con- 

 tain 12,000 specimens : there is also a collection, occupying no less than 72 

 folio volumes, purchased of Mr. Charles du Bois by the first Professor Sib- 

 thorp ; one by Professor Dillenius, intended to illustrate his Muscologia ; 

 another very extensive one, presented by Lord Macartney ; and a small but 

 nicely arranged series of plants made by Dr. Thomas Shaw, the traveller, in 

 Barbary, Greece, and Egypt, and referred to in his work. To these I shall 

 have to add, a large Herbarium accumulated by the younger Dr. Sibthorp in 

 Greece and Turkey, one presented by the East India Company, and another 

 of Australian specimens, which have hitherto been deposited, for want of 

 proper room, in the Ratcliffe library ; my own collection, illustrative of the 

 natural system, which, being chiefly made at Geneva, is richest in Swiss plants ; 

 and another, of British ones, presented by the Rev. R. Walker, author of the 

 Flora of Oxfordshire. There is also a collection of minerals, shells, and 

 corallines, made by that indefatigable naturalist, the author of the Flora 

 Grceca. 



" The only other building which need be noticed is the gardener's house, 

 the bed-rooms of which are damp and unhealthy, from being placed on the 

 ground floor contiguous to a stagnant ditch. The rooms are also all of them 

 extremely confined, and especially the gardener's own private study. 



" From the above statement of the present condition of the establishment 

 of the Oxford Botanic Garden, it will appear that the most pressing want is 

 that of better houses for stove and green-house plants, the present ones, and 

 especially the stove-house, being not only too confined, but also so miserably 

 constructed, that all hopes of cultivating rare and curious exotics, as is usual 

 in other public gardens of the same description, must be abandoned, until 

 better are obtained. I think, too, that a mere reference to the large annual 

 expense of maintaining them, even in their present imperfect state of repair, 

 will make it appear that the most advisable, as well as, eventually, the most 

 economical plan, would be that of pulling down all, except the principal 

 central green-house, to the ground, and erecting new ones in their place. 



" Considering, also, the extent and value of the present collections; the 

 probability of future additions ; the difficulty of rendering them so extensively 

 useful as it is to be wished they should become, whilst crowded within the 

 present narrow limits ; the circumstance that, by the will of the late Professor 

 Sibthorp, no less than 100/. a year is expressly directed to be applied from 

 the proceeds of his estate to the purchase of books, so soon as the Flora 

 Grceca shall have been completed; and the injury sustained by these, as well 

 as by the dried plants, in consequence of the necessary application of the 

 present library to the purposes of a lecture-room ; I feel strongly impressed 

 with the necessity of erecting, with the first money that can be raised, after 

 that provision which seems indispensable for the plants has been made, one 

 additional room at the least for the reception of books, and a small private 

 study for the professor, both on the first floor, having underneath suitable 

 offices for a servant, who should take charge of the apartments and their 

 contents. 



" The particular mode in which these several objects may best be secured 



