GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 
contributors might come forward—to build a wall round the garden 
on condition that the court of assistants of the Society of Apothe- 
caries, who undertook the management of the scheme, should 
agree to pay 2/— annually for ever, towards the cost of the 
‘ herborizings.” The proposal was accepted, and the members of 
the laboratory staff contributed £50 towards building the wall, 
in return for which they were to be allowed a piece of ground in 
the garden for herbs. This stipulation shows that, in its first 
inception at any rate, the Chelsea plot was not primarily intended 
for the cultivation of medicinal plants. 
The services of Piggott, the first gardener, were discontinued 
in December, 1677, and a certain Richard Pratt was appointed | 
at a salary—liberal for those days—of £30 per annum. Directions 
were given that the following year the garden should be planted 
with the best fruit trees, and the promise to the laboratory staff, 
carried out by a good crop of medicinal herbs. In 1680 we find 
one Mr. Watts, who had been a contributor to the erection of the 
wall, appointed head-gardener, his remuneration being £50 per 
annum. There was also an allowance for two labourers. 
Shortly after this, at the lower end of the ground near the river, 
a greenhouse was constructed, costing £138. Watts then pro- 
ceeded to Holland to arrange an exchange of plants with the pro- 
fessor of botany at the University of Leyden, who had previously 
visited the Chelsea garden—a garden that had thus in a single 
decade assumed importance in the world of botanical science. 
It was about this time that the four famous cedars which appear 
so picturesquely in the old prints of the garden, were planted, 
being at the time only three feet high. Unfortunately they no 
longer exist; the two northern ones, having decayed, were cut 
down about 1770, together with some limes and elms, and various 
other trees considered to be injurious to the growth of the plants 
for which the garden was designed. Henry Field, writing in 
1878, mentions that the last survivor of the famous group was 
then moribund. The timber from the two felled trees was sold 
for £23 9s. 8d. 
In 1685 Mr. Evelyn writes in his diary : 
“IT went to see Mr. Watts, keeper of the apothecaries’ garden 
of simples at Chelsea, where there is a collection of innumerable 
varieties of that sort—particularly, besides many rare annuals, the 
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