Kelso Botanic Garden. 369 



public funds ; and, what is more curious, Dublin and Edinburgh have similar 

 establishments, to which grants of public money have been liberally furnished; 

 but London has nothing, except a small garden at Chelsea, maintained b}' the 

 funds of a private corporation. It has usually happened that botanical gardens 

 have been established to meet the wants of universities ; and so long as 

 London was not the seat of a university, the necessity of establishing a public 

 botanical garden was less pressing than it is at present. Now that a great 

 number of students are annually collected in London for the purpose of study, 

 it has become indispensable that such means of instruction as a botanical 

 garden affords should be provided. It appears, from returns obtained from 

 the Society of Apothecaries, that annually, on an average of the last three 

 years, as many as 433 medical students have been registered as attending 

 lectures on botany in London : they are compelled to attend these lectures, 

 not only by the Apothecaries' Society and the College of Surgeons, but by 

 the regulations of the army and navy ; and yet this large number of young 

 men studying the most important of professions, is practically deprived of the 

 advantages of referring to a botanical garden, without which it is impossible 

 that their studies can be prosecuted efficiently. It is true that there is a 

 Botanical Garden at Chelsea belonging to the Apothecaries' Society, but it is 

 not to be expected that the funds of such a corporation, however liberally 

 -disposed it may be, should suffice for the maintenance of such a botanical 

 garden as the wants of students render necessary. 



But this is only one out of many reasons why a National Botanical Gar- 

 den should be maintained by Government near London. 



There are many gardens in the British Colonies and dependencies : such 

 establishments exist in Calcutta, Bombay, Saharunpur, in the Isle of France, 

 at Sydney, and in Trinidad, costing many thousands a year : their utility is 

 very much diminished by the want of some system under which they can all 

 be regulated and controlled. They are in a similar condition to the Royal 

 Forcing and Kitchen Gardens already disposed of; there is no unity of pur- 

 pose among them ; their objects are unsettled ; their powers wasted, from not 

 receiving a proper direction ; they afford no aid or assistance to each other, 

 and it is to be feared, in some cases, but little to the countries in which they 

 are established ; and yet they are capable of conferring very important benefits 

 upon commerce, and of conducing essentially to colonial prosperity. 



A National Botanical Garden would be the centre around which all those 

 minor establishments should be arranged ; they should be all under the con- 

 trol of the chief of that garden, acting in concert with him, and through him 

 with each other, reporting constantly their proceedings, explaining their wants, 

 receiving their supplies, and aiding the mother country in every thing that is 

 useful in the vegetable kingdom. Medicine, commerce, agriculture, horticul- 

 ture, and manj' valuable branches of manufacture, would derive considerable 

 advantages from the establishment of such a system. 



From a garden of this kind, Government would always be able to obtain 

 authentic and official information upon points connected with the establish- 

 ment of new colonies ; it would afford the plants required on those occasions, 

 without its being necessary, as is now the case, to apply to the officers of 

 private establishments for advice and assistance. 



Such a garden would be the great source of new and valuable plants to be 

 introduced and dispersed through this country ; it would be a powerful means 

 of increasing the pleasure of those who already possess gardens, and, what is 

 far more important, it would undoubtedly become an efficient instrument in 

 refining the taste, increasing the knov/ledge, and augmenting the amount of 

 rational pleasures of that important class of society, to provide for the in- 

 struction of which has become so great and wise an object with the present 

 enlightened administration. 



Purposes like these could not be effectually accomplished with such a place 

 as the Botanical Garden of Kew now is. The present establishment would, 

 however, form an admirable foundation ; and the facility of reaching it, either 



