THE 



103 



or 



he was promoted to be foreman of the hothouses and propagatin 

 department, and soon began to take a special interest in ferns. At 

 that time there were about forty hardy and as many tender exotic 

 ferns in the Kew collection. Between 1823 and 1810 Kew was at 

 its lowest ebb, and when, at the death of William IV., Lindley, 

 Bentham, and Paxton were appointed a commission to investigate 

 its condition, they reported that whatever names were attached to 

 the plants " have been furnished by Mr. Smith, the foreman, and 

 that the Director does not hold himself answerable for them. ,, 



With 1841 came the transfer of the gardens to the Commis- 

 sioners of Woods and Forests. Sir W. J. Hooker was appointed 

 Director, and John Smith was continued as Curator, with results 

 which I need not recapitulate here. In 1846 the collection of 

 ferns had increased from 80 to 400 species, in 1857 to 600, and in 

 1866, when Sir Win. Hooker died and John Smith resigned, to 

 about 1000 species and well-marked varieties. A considerable 

 number of the additions were raised from spores taken from dried 

 specimens. During the Aitonian period Smith had contributed two 

 papers to the ' Transactions of the Linnean Society,' one on Ergot 

 in 1838, and his well-known paper on Ccelobogyne in 1839. In 1841 

 he contributed to Hooker's Journal an enumeration of the magni- 

 ficent collection of ferns made by Cuming in the Philippine Islands. 

 His scheme for a new classification of ferns was laid before the 

 Linnean Society in 1841, and published in Hooker's Journal in 

 1841-2. His primary divisions, Desmobnja and Eremobrya, were 

 original, but in his idea of founding genera on venation he was 

 anticipated by Presl, whose ' Tentamen Pteridographia ' appeared 

 in 1836, His ideas on fern-classification were further explained in 

 his contributions to Hooker & Bauer's ■ Genera Filicum ' in 1842, 

 and in his enumeration of the ferns gathered by Seemann during 

 the exploring expedition of the ' Herald/ published in 1856. In 

 1861 his sight began to fail, and in 1863 he retired upon a pension, 

 having been in the service of the Garden forty-four years. His 

 collection of dried ferns, consisting of 2000 species on 6000 large 

 folio sheets, was purchased in 1866 for the British Museum. His 

 wife died in 1838, and he lost his six children one after the other 

 by consumption, the last in 1871. His son Alexander held posts in 

 the Museum, and afterwards in the Herbarium at Kew. 

 . In spite of his blindness, Mr. Smith still continued to take a keen 

 interest in botanical and horticultural matters, and his memory and 

 energy we re wonderful up to the very last. He lived in lodgings at 

 ^ew, and had a young lady secretary, whom he kept employed for 



about six hours a day, reading to him and writing for him. The 

 rm«iti*i u^i 1 ■ i , -.1 i— n iese circumstances are 



Domestic Botany/ 1871; 

 ™— xxuuuul iovo; -i^iuitj j.i«,iiLs, 1878; Becords of the 

 botanic Garden, Kew,' 1880 ; and 'Dictionary of Economic Plants/ 

 £ b »2. He died suddenly on the 12th of February, 1888, and was 

 Dl \ned in the churchyard on Kew Green, beside his wife and 

 ^udren. His funeral was attended by Sir J. D. Hooker and nearly 



e wIiol e of the present staff of the Kew establishment. 



J. G. Bakeb. 



