^ HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. ^ 



vegetation of distant countries was beginning to attract atten- 

 tion. Travellers sent tome seeds to their friends, and merchants 

 foreign plants as precious gifts. The great body of gardeners 

 was ceasing to consist of mere labourers. About the middle 

 of the eighteenth century the Botanic Garden at Kew was 

 formed, and conservatories buUt in it by Sir WUliam Chambers. 

 Hither flowed all the acquisitions of the day, and herein was 

 collected aU that was most rare in the eyes of botanists. The 

 Governments of the day aided it by defraying the expenses of 

 collectors of plants in foreign countries. Experienced men were 

 sent specially to China, to Ceylon, to Australia, to Brazil, and 

 voyages of discovery were accompanied by competent gardeners, 

 whose duty it was to forward everything to Kew. With sucli 

 support the place acquired great celebrity; enormous materials 

 were deposited there, and for a century it has been regarded as 

 the richest garden in the world. The example thus set found 

 followers in every direction, and public taste was so directed 

 towards ornamental gardening that, by the beginning of the 

 present century, a well-furnished pleasm-e-ground became as 

 indispensable an article of luxury as a drawing-room ; and what 

 was called a collection of greenhouse plants was to be found 

 attached to every village mansion. Unfortunately, however, 

 skill in cultivating plants by no means accompanied ardour in 

 collecting them. Horticulture was not yet a science. Its state at 

 the beginning of the present century has been thus described 

 by Dr. Lindley : " What was good in cultivation did not 

 extend beyond the fmit and kitchen-garden, which was scantily 

 supplied with varieties scarcely now remembered, except in the 

 case of a few fr'uits and esculents little susceptible of change. 



