258 AN AMERICAN KEW. 



not possess an iraportant botanical collection ; while, on the other hand, 

 there is certainly no couutry that has more natural advantages for 

 creating and raaintaining one. Were we to confine ourselves strictly to 

 our own boundaries, we could raake a raagnificent showing ; but we 

 have the whole globe to draw upon, and we are so situated as to raake this 

 draft a comparatively easy aifair. As to the scientific expediency of the 

 enterprise there can be no dispute. The value of botanical study has 

 always been recognized. The Dark Ages, whose enlightenment we are 

 just begiuning to appreciate, are greatly our creditors in tliis regard : 

 the monks of the old monasteries, together with Albertus Magnus and 

 other Hermetic philosophers who pretended to be absorbed in the pursuit 

 of the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life, were at any rate 

 diligent botanists, and, by their gtudy and cultivation of plants, were 

 the means of preserving countless specimens that would otherwise have 

 been irretrievably lost, and which are of high value in medicine and 

 otherwise. But for the energy of certain obscure botanists who lived 

 and labored upwards of a century ago, the civilized world might now 

 be eking out a miserable existence without either coffee or quinine. 

 We had a narrow shave of it, as it was. In 1850, England and Hol- 

 land becarae alarraed at the increasing price of cinchona, due to the 

 rapid decrease of the forests in Peru. Seeds and seedlings were planted 

 in Java; but they were of an inferior quality, and turned out poorly. 

 At length England sent out Sir Clements Markhara, who collected a 

 quantity of healthy plants in Peru and despatched them to India, 

 where a few of them arrived in good condition and were set out. The 

 success was enormous ; and there are to-day, in Bengal alone, upwards 

 of five million plants of this useful vegetable, and myriads more are 

 distributed all over the earth. As for coffee, our hopes of it came at 

 lengih to rest upon a residue of three plants, which somebody whose 

 name I have forgotten secured and carried away with him from its 

 native habitat. Of these three, two died on the passage; but the third 

 survived. But for that, how should we have fared at breakfast and 

 after dinner ? The unspeakable Turk, at all events, must have expired 

 on his divan cushions long since : his cup of coffee is asvital to him as 

 his hookah, which he owes to the magnanimous Raleigh. 



There is no need, however, of multiplying instances to establish 

 the value of botanical knowledge and the importance of encouraging 

 and eultivating it. And yet we Americans, the leaders of civilization, 

 have, after more than a century of national existence, done nothing to- 

 wards keeping our end upin this respect. Surely the time is over-ripe 

 for us to lay the foundations of such a collection as shall eclipse Kew 

 itself and serve henceforth as a model to the world. The thine: can so 

 easily be done that it is a source of special wonder that it was not done 

 long ago. It cannot fail, when done, to profit all concerned, — the pro- 

 moters, the students, and the public at large, — who will not only have 

 the grounds as a perennial pleasure-resort, but who will pick up inevi- 

 tably a considerable acquaintance with botanical facts, which will 

 redound to their health and prosperity in various ways. 



Doubtless, once the idea has taken root, there will be Gardens all 

 over the Union ; but it behooves us in New York to be first in the 



