" Tlie Council, tlierefore, while reducing expenditure in 

 every direction as a temporary expedient, anxiously occupied 

 themselves with the task of discovering in what way the 

 income of the Society might be so increased as to enable them 

 again to venture upon measures more conducive to its general 

 interests. A Garden accessible without trouble or expense, 

 in which the progress of Horticulture should be shown, not 

 merely by what it might itself contain, but by the results of 

 the advancing skill of others exhibited within it, was clearly 

 indispensable. The time had passed when montlily meetings 

 in a small room in a London street wordd satisfy the expecta- 

 tions of the public. It was necessary to exhibit gardenmg on 

 a great scale, and on its own ground. The Garden at Chiswick 

 was no longer able to supply that want. Inaccessibility, 

 according to modern notions, and original faults of construction, 

 had rendered it useless for exhibition purposes, and a large 

 annual pecuniary loss. Nevertheless the principal income of the 

 Society, from the year 1832, had been derived from Chiswick, 

 either directly or indirectly, and the Council felt persuaded that 

 if some other garden, more favourably placed, and constructed 

 with all the advantages of modem skill, cordd be obtained, the 

 utility and prosperity of the Society would rise higher than ever." 



This was the far-sighted view taken of their position by His 

 Eoyal Highness ; and it so happened that another body (Her 

 Majesty's Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851), whom His 

 Eoyal Highness equally represented, had an interest which 

 directly harmonised with, and as it were dovetailed into that of 

 the Horticultural Society. The latter required for their shows 

 and promenades a Garden not wholly in the to^vn, and yet not 



Biiiggii^ 



m 



m 



all 



M 



