76 The late Mt John Sadler. By William Craig, M.D. 



On the death of Mr McNab in December, 1878, John Sadler 

 was appointed Curator of the Eoyal Botanical Garden, and on the 

 acquisition of the Grounds around Inverleith House for the 

 purpose of an Arboretum, he was also appointed Curator. As 

 Curator of the Eoyal Botanic Garden he was ever anxious to 

 maintain it in a high state of cultivation, and at the same time 

 to make it as available to the public as possible. He had 

 only begun to lay out the grounds of the Royal Arboretum, when 

 he was so suddenly cut off in the very prime of life, but what 

 little he had accomplished showed that he was pre-eminently well 

 qualified to make these grounds attractive, alike as a place of re- 

 sort and for the purposes of the scientific study of forestry. In 

 1867 he was appointed Lecturer on Botany in the Eoyal High 

 School of Edinburgh. He was a popular and successful teacher, 

 but resigned this situation as well as the Assistantship to the Pro- 

 fessor of Botany, on his appointment to the Curatorship of the 

 Eoyal Botanic Garden. 



He was a member of many learned Societies, and took a warm 

 interest in their proceedings. He was for many years a Fellow 

 of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. He contributed many 

 valuable papers to its Transactions, and after his appointment as 

 Curator of the Eoyal Botanic Garden, he gave regular reports on 

 the state of open air vegetation at the Garden, reports which 

 were always fully printed in the various papers and journals, and 

 read with great interest by the general public as well as by 

 scientific botanists. For 21 years he was the acting secretary of 

 this society, and as an appreciation of the excellent way in which 

 he discharged the duties of the office, he was presented with a 

 handsome timepiece and a purse containing 71 sovereigns. The 

 clock bore the following inscription written by the late Sir Eobert 

 Christison : " Joanni Sadler, in re botanica peretissimo, scientia 

 insigni, Soc. Bot. a secretis, comitatem propter ac plurima officia 

 D. D. D. que Societas Botanica Edinensis, 1880." On the same 

 occasion Mrs Sadler was presented with an elegant gold bracelet 

 set with corals and pearls, bearing the following inscription: 

 " Presented to Mrs Sadler by the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 

 in token of their gratitude to her husband for his manifold ser- 

 vices, 1880." 



He was a vice-president of the Scottish Arboricultural Society, 

 and for 19 years discharged the duties of secretary. When he 

 retired from the secretaryship, the Society presented him with a 



