vi Historic NOTICE. 
Buildings, apparently on the site of the present South College 
Street. This was the College Garden, and of it James Sutherland 
became also custodian. 
Thus in the early years of the eighteenth century there were 
in Edinburgh three distinct Botanic or Physic Gardens—one 
at Holyrood, the Royal Garden; one around Trinity Hospital, 
the Town’s Garden; and one beside the College, the College 
Garden—all under the care of James Sutherland. 
Sutherland from the first made use of the Royal Garden for 
giving “instruction in Botany to the Lieges,’’ and received a royal 
warrant appointing him Botanist to the King in Scotland, and 
empowering him to ‘‘set up a Profession of Botany’’ in this 
Garden. When the Town’s Garden was created the Town 
Council appointed him to lecture on Botany as Professor in the 
Town’s College, now the University of Edinburgh. In 1683 he 
published his ‘‘ Hortus Medicus Edinburgensis, or a Catalogue 
of the Plants in the Physical Garden at Edinburgh,” from which 
and from other published notices we learn that between two and 
three thousand plants were in cultivation. There are no data 
available from which to determinate how these plants were distri- 
buted between the several Gardens at the date of publication of 
Sutherland’s catalogue. 
In 1706 Sutherland resigned the care of the Town’s Garden 
and the College Garden as well as his Professorship in the 
University, but, remaining King’s Botanist, he retained the care 
of the Royal Garden at Holyrood. Charles Preston (1660-1711) 
was appointed his successor by the Town Council, and there were 
thus established rival Gardens and rival Professors of Botany in 
Edinburgh. Charles Preston was succeeded in 1712 in his offices 
by his brother George Preston (1659-1749). Neither of the 
Prestons had ever the care of the Royal Garden. 
Sutherland’s appointment as King’s Botanist, Keeper of the 
Royal Garden, and Regius Professor of Botany was held during 
the pleasure of the Sovereign, and on the death of Queen Anne 
in 1714 he was not continued in office by George I. 
In 1715 William Arthur (1680-1716) received a com- 
mission as successor to Sutherland, but as he was implicated in 
an unsuccessful Jacobite plot to seize the Castle, he did not hold 
the office long. 
He was succeeded in 1716 by Charles Alston (1685—1760). 
In 1724 the College Garden, having fallen into disorder, was 
