ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDEN. 105 



Besides the experience and teaching that employment among the 

 plant collections give, a fine horticultural library is provided, and 

 several courses of lectures on botany and allied subjects are given 

 annually. A debating society and a field club are admirable and 

 important institutions, bringing into the curriculum a social element 

 that is very valuable. The mere contact with a large number of 

 men engaged in similar pursuits, which a term at Kew involves, has 

 many advantages, especially to one who may have in the future the 

 management of labor. 



Kew Guild. — Not unnaturally the general desire of men of all 

 ranks who had passed through Kew to keep in touch with each 

 other and the parent establishment led to the foundation of the 

 Kew Guild. This association issues a journal which constitutes a 

 connecting link between all its members. This journal records 

 changes and events at Kew, publishes news from members at home 

 and abroad, and gives the names and addresses of all its members. 

 As an example of the cosmopolitan character of its membership, the 

 following figures are interesting : Asia, 46 ; Africa, 34 ; America, 60 ; 

 Australasia. 18; and Europe 63, exclusive of those in the British 

 Isles. In the industrial development of British colonies and posses- 

 sions the Kew man has always been among the earliest workers. 

 As soon as the pax Britannica has been established, and often before, 

 he appears. He founds botanic stations where useful plants are 

 grown for distribution and he gn r es demonstrations of the best 

 methods of cultivating them. He fostered the tea industry in India 

 and Ceylon; he also started the cultivation of cinchona there: he 

 has helped largely in the regeneration of the West Indian Islands; 

 and at the present time Africa is dotted over with the stations he is 

 managing, each one a nucleus of what will probably develop into 

 the most important industries of the Continent. Often he suffers 

 the fate common to pioneers — he sows that others may reap. Many 

 a Kew man has laid down his life in the conscientious performance 

 of his duty — as genuine a sacrifice to the cause of empire and of, 

 humanity as any soldier or missionary has ever made. 



MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION, 1913. 



List of staffs of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and of botanical 

 departments, establishments, and officers at home, and in India, and 

 the colonies in correspondence with Kew. 



Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew : Director, assistant director, two 

 second-class assistants, keeper of herbarium and library, three first- 

 class assistants, six second-class assistants, assistant for tropical 

 Africa, assistant for India, assistant keeper, Jodrell laboratory, 

 keeper of museums, two second-class assistants, preparer, curator 

 of the gardens, assistant curator; foreman for each of the fol- 

 lowing: Herbaceous department, arboretum, greenhouse and orna- 

 mental department, tropical department, temperate house ; store- 

 keeper and official guide. 



Aberdeen University Botanic Garden : Professor. 



Cambridge University Botanical Department : Professor ; curator, 

 university herbarium; curator, university museum; curator of gar- 

 den. 



