52 
mental cultivation could be carried on or where special seeds and plants 
could be obtained for starting new industries, This condition of affairs 
is scarcely demde to a large and wealthy community like that at the 
Cape. The n gardens now established in the more important 
centres of bajulatida i in Cape Colony are likely to be useful as breathing 
spaces, and as emen adjunets to publie buildings. As pur urely 
call them Botanic gardens, and it is as well that the name was changed 
and their proper character officially recognis 
mething, however; more than an “ornamental garden, dotted here 
and there, is ; required i in South Africa, = central establishment in the 
A nahan of Cape Town doro ed the scientific study and 
experimental eultivation of plants, fully i anbed to discharge its studies 
asa national re on the lines of Kew, would alone be worthy of 
the cin ES South Africa. 
of E. of the world is one of extreme interest. It 
Loans to D carefully and exhaustively studied, and numerous plants, 
now in danger of becoming extinct, should be preserved in some central 
spot for the observation mee tudents. Of the economie influences of 
such a central institution it idm to enlarge. There are hundreds 
of problems connected with the cultivation of industrial plants in South 
Africa awaiting solution, and these could only be dealt with at an 
institution s lly dev: oted. to. scientific research, where careful trials 
could be conducted extending over many years. As affording the most 
recent eee on the subject, the following letter received from 
Mr. Thomas R. Sim, on resigning charge of the King William’s Town 
Garden, is "eproduee ced :— 
Curator, Botanic GARDEN, Kina Wirrraw's Town, to ROYAL 
GARDENS, Kew. 
Botanic Garden, King William's Town, 
Dnsan Sim, une 30, 1894 
I HAVE to thank you for seeds received some time ago, but since 
I last wrote on Since then we have been cm but gradually pro- 
gressing with the arrangements—of which I have spoken to you ever 
Corporation, and now that early accomplished. The garden will 
then become like those of Port. Elizabeth and Cape Town, a Howa garden 
hat one more of the Botanic imo uch, passing 
“a of Glenn, and taking the name and char "acm riria would have 
better suited it for the greater part of its existence. 
. Indeed, what we are in want of most is one really good botanical and 
tal garden f for the Colony, equipped so that it shall not have 
part of its 
j ce, and then allow each town to 
, public ei or whatever the local éireum- 
