CHAPTER VI 
EALOUSY is an abominable vice, yet who can think of 
the resources of Kew without a pang? No doubt they 
would tell you there that the Government cares nothing 
for beauty—only for utility, and is always worrying them—not to 
grow the most glorious shrubs and trees, but to make two blades 
of grass succeed in the room of one, to produce ‘potatoes as big as 
melons, and double the seeds in every ear of corn. Upon these 
industrial problems the intellect of Kew is bound to descend, 
even at moments when it would fain be soaring to esthetic 
heights of loveliness. But Kew has made its name—to have a 
plant accepted by Kew continues a distinction all the world over ; 
none of us is really happy until we have had a plant accepted 
at Kew. 
Consider those incomparable lines in Dr. Darwin’s “‘ Botanical 
Garden,” already mentioned. No wonder Kew is a little uppish 
sometimes when she remembers them :— 
«So sits enthron’d in vegetable pride 
Imperial Kew by Thames’s glittering side ; 
Obedient sails from realms unfurrowed bring 
For her the unnamed progeny of Spring ; 
Attendant nymphs her dulcet mandates hear, 
And nurse in fostering arms the tender year, 
Plant the young bulb, inhume the living seed, 
Prop the weak stem, the erring tendril lead ; 
Or fan in glass-built fanes the stranger flowers 
With milder gales, and steep with warmer showers.” 
. 55 
