82 



DEPARTJIENTAL COMMITTEE ON BOTANICAL WORK 



Sir W. T. 



Thiselton- 



Dyer, 



K.C.M.G., 

 F.K.S. 



[Copy.] 



Downing Street, 26th July, 1897. 

 Sir,— I am directed by Mr. Secretary Chamberlain to 

 transmit to you the accompanying copy of a letter in 

 which Messrs. Elder, Dempster, and Company express 

 29 Nov. 1900. their satisfaction at the success of the Botanical Gardens 

 which have been established in the four West African 



colonies. 



1 am, etc., 

 (Signed) John Bramston. 



The Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew. 



[Copy.] 



African House, Water Street, Liverpool, 

 July 9th, 1897. 

 Sir, — We have been very much interested lately in the 

 botanical gardens on the West Coast of Africa, particu- 

 larly those at Lagos, and great credit is due to Sir Gilbert 

 Carter for the way in which these gardens have been 

 pushed. We would like to impress upon the Colonial 

 Government that they should double the extent of the 

 gardens, not only at Lagos, but at all the colonies. They 

 are a most important feature, and have been a great suc- 

 cess in distributing plants to all the growers. We have 

 obt-ained rubber plants on the Ilaro estates, and they are 

 doing splendidly. We could not have had them had it 

 not been for the botanical gardens. We are very glad 

 to see that Major McCallum is taking a great interest in 

 these gardens. We are, etc., 



(Signed) Elder, Dempster, and Company. 



The Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., 

 Secretary of State for the Colonies. 



A good deal which bears on this point will be foxind 

 incidentally under other heads- 



1. Herbarium. — Many continental herbaJia axe 

 simply collections of dried plants, which do not profess 

 to aif ord more assistance to a person engaged in research 

 than to save the trouble of visiting the countries they 

 came from. Such collections are samples of their vegeta- 

 tion, but nothing more. Tliat is an extreme case, and 

 various institutions afford every gradation in the extent 

 to which their collections are worked up and systemati- 

 cally determined and arranged. Probablv this is carried 

 further at Kew than anywhere else, simply because such a 

 vast amount of pubiUshed work has been based upon its 

 Traterial. The dominant object of herbarium administra- 

 tion at Kew is to set the material received as soon as 

 possible into a j-hape in which it is available for study. 

 Every detail of arrangement is directed towards making it 

 as conveniently accessible as possible, and towards bring- 

 ing to bear upon it the resources of the library by means 

 of indexes, catalogues, etc. In this respect it, is, I beheve, 

 a matter of general agreement amongst -botanists of all 

 countries that the Kew Herbarium affords greater 

 facilities for work, and for the determination of plants 

 than any other. In most foreign herbaria the mere 

 mechanical difficulties in consulting the collections seri- 

 ously limit their utility. 



What I think may be fairly described as the superior 

 advantages of Kew methods attract to Kew many foreign 

 botanists, who find that they can work out their collec- 

 tions at Kew with greater readinesr than elsewhere. Don 

 "Vidal y Soler, was sent by the Spanish Government to 

 Kew to work out his forest collections from the Philip- 

 pines, as explained in the following letter : — 



Lf^gacion de Espaiia en Londres. 



The Marquis de Casa Laiglesia presents his compli- 

 ments to Sir Joseph D. Hooker, and would be infinitely 

 obliged if he would kindly grant permission to iMr. 

 Sebastian Vidal, bearer of the present, to study the col- 

 lection of plants in the museum of Kew Gardens. 



Mr. Vidal is an inspector of woods and forests in 

 Spain, and has been specially commissioned by the 

 Spanish Government to make a report on the plants of 

 the Philippine Islands. 



London, October 23rd, 1S83. 



The results were embodied in a work published at 

 Manila in 1885. In 1897 Dr. Loher arranged to r>end to 

 Kew from Manila his herbarium of Philippine plants, 

 comprising some 3,000 specimens, Kew being allowed 



to retain what it required in return for the determina- 

 tions. In view of recent political events, it was further 

 requested that a set of the duplicates should be sent 

 to Washington. This request was the more readily 

 complied with as the relations which have obtained 

 between Kew and the United States botanists have 

 always been of the most cordial kind, and the liberality 

 of its Government to^ Kew has been unfailing. 



Kew is especially frequented by American botanists. 

 Mr. Donnell Smith, of Baltimore, has rep_eatedly visited 

 Kew for the identification of his Costa Rica collections, 

 and Professor Rusby, of New York, for those made by 

 him in Bolivia. Monsieur Glaziou has during a long 

 series of years transmitted to Kew his immense collec- 

 tion of Brazilian plants for determination. Monsieur 

 Pierre has similarly visited Kew from time to time to 

 work out the materials of the flora of Cochin China 

 which he is preparing for the French Government. 

 Sir George King has transmitted to Kew for ooraparlson 

 by himself the very extensive collection made in view 

 of his flora of the Straits Settlements which he is pre- 

 paring for the Government of that colony. It is not 

 necessary to extend the list ; the above will sufiiciently 

 indicate the appreciation abroad of the method on 

 which the Kew Herbarium is administered. 



2. MusEtriis. — While other coxmtries possess her- 

 baria of greater or less importance, the Kew museums 

 in their way are probably unique. I am not aware that 

 there is anything precisely comparable to them else- 

 where. 



I extract from the "Indian Forester" the "Service 

 Journal" of the Indian Forest Department an account 

 of the impression which Kew and its resources produced 

 on a colonial official during a recent visit. If I have 

 not suppressed the disparaging reference to the timber 

 collection at the ]S'atu7'al History Museum, it must be 

 remembered that the institution does not possess the 

 space available at Kew for such bulky objects as timber 

 specimens. 



Extract from the "Indian Forester," March, 190G. 



Botany and the Forest Depaetkent. 



My object in writing now is to endeavour to draw the 

 attention of foresters on leave to Kew. It is a common 

 error to suppose that Kew is all botany, or at least pure 

 botany. Kew is nothing if not practical ; and I feel 

 very strongly that no forest officers home on leave should 

 miss seeing Kew and its treasures. 



When recently on leave in England I visited Kew, 

 intending to stay a week. I ended by staying ten weeks. 

 Its museums and herbariums are well worthy of study. 

 Its glass houses cannot fail tO' interest foresters from 

 every part of the world. Coming from the Cape, its 

 temperate houses had naturally for me a peculiar in- 

 terest. But of the two great houses at Kew there is 

 no doubt that the tropical is the more successful. Extra- 

 tropical regions are characterisied by peculiar climatic 

 conditions, which are difficult to imitate in a glass 

 house. Trees and vegetation from the damp, temperate 

 climates of Japan and the Himalayas cannot be grown 

 in the same house with the trees and vegetation from 

 the dry, sunlit climates of Australia and the Cape. 



The North Gallery at Kew is a sort of happy hunting 

 ground for the forester on leave. I used to spend some 

 hours there daily, like the orthodox tourist in Rome 

 doing St. Peter's. It is a perfect paradise for lovers of 

 nature. The collection of timber at Kew is, for purposes 

 of study, the best in England. Cooper's Hill has got 

 a very good small working collection. The largest and 

 finest collection of woods is undoubtedly in the much 

 abused Imperial Institute, but this collection lacks the 

 method and arrangement of the Kew collection. It is, 

 nevertheless, a splendid and unique collection. 



The Natural History Museum in the Cromwell Road 

 (a branch of the British Museum) has, for a national 

 institution, a simply disgraceful collection of timbers. 

 There are some British woods and pictures recalling the 

 child's Noah's Ark, and a few specimens of the big 

 trees of the world, but anything like a general or re- 

 presentative collection of timbers is conspicuous by its 

 absence at South Kensington. This is the more remark- 

 able when it is remembered that England has more 

 extensive and widespread colonies than any other nation, 

 and that England's little bill for imported timber, which 

 can be grown two or three times over 'n'ilhin the limits 

 of the British Isles, has now reached the respectable 

 figure of twenty and three-quarter millions. 



