14 TRANSACTIONS LIVEEPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



of Botany. The name " Physic Garden " by which it was 

 for long known was to a certain extent a misnomer. 

 Medicinal plants were certainly cultivated in it but in the 

 deed of gift by Sir Hans Sloane the growing of plants for 

 pharmaceutical trade purposes is expressly forbidden. 



The history of the first beginings of the Chelsea Gardens 

 sounds rather paltry not to say ridiculous after one has 

 studied the story of the foundation of the gardens of 

 Padua and Montpellier. We read that the ground on which 

 the Chelsea Garden is now laid out was originally taken 

 by the Apothecaries Society as a spot on which to build a 

 convenient barge house for the ornamental barge which 

 the society (like other city companies) then possessed. 

 This plot of ground was walled round in 1674, and four 

 years later appears to have been planted with fruit trees 

 and herbs for the use of the Apothecaries' laboratory. A 

 greenhouse and stove were added shortly afterwards and 

 the Society then began to exchange plants with the 

 gardens of the University of Ley den. The purchase of 

 the estate by Dr. (afterwards Sir Hans) Sloane in 1712 at 

 once brought about a change for the better in the prospects 

 of the Chelsea establishment. Sloane was a scientist of 

 no mean rank — a pupil of the chemist Stahl and of the 

 botanist Tournefort and further a friend of Bay, the 

 father of English Botany. His scientific achievements 

 won for him the presidency of the Boyal Society in 

 succession to Sir Isaac Newton. His enthusiastic love 

 for science in general and for Botany in particular led 

 him to readily accede to the request of the Apothecaries 

 Society for liberal treatment with regard to the conditions 

 of tenure of the garden now included within his estate, 

 and in 1722 Sloane generously handed over to them the 

 ground — an area of over three acres — on condition, how- 

 ever, that the Society paid an annual rent of £5, and 



