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of tte Eeport in wMcli the Council announced these acts of 

 despairing energy, another special Meeting of the Society was 

 called (held on the 7th of July, 1859), at which propositions 

 were made which wholly altered the aspect of affairs, speedUy 

 restored the Society to more than its former vigour, witMn two 

 years reared the beautiful Arcadian Garden at Sou.th Kensing- ^ 

 ton, and ojoened to it a career of extended usefulness, surpassing, j 

 we may hope, even the brilliant success of the old Society. 

 To this we must devote another chapter, ljut, before leaving the 

 history of this epoch, we may be allowed briefly to sum up the 

 work done during it by the Society, and the benefits conferred 

 by it, not on this country alone, but on mankind in general. 

 We cannot do so better than by quoting the words of the 

 Council in their Eeport on 1st of May, 1857: — "For more 

 than half a century, the Society has endeavoured to pursue the 

 path traced out by its Charter. It has minutely examined the 

 equalities, and reduced to order the names, of fruit-trees and of 

 esculent plants ; it has directed the attention of scientific as 



j well as of practical men to the improvement of the arts of 

 cultivation ; it has introduced at much cost great numbers of 

 exotic plants to decorate om* gardens ; it has published many 

 volumes fiHed with important treatises upon almost every subject 

 in which the gardener is interested ; it has formed a very 

 extensive garden and orchard, in which have been collected 



I from time to time numerous plants, valuable for their utUity or 

 beauty ; it has given a great impetus to cultivation by its 

 public exhibitions of garden j^roduce ; it has been a school from 

 which have sprung some of the most distinguished gardeners 

 of the present century ; and it has given away to its Fellows 



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