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HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



" Unrivalled opportunities are here offered for the display 

 of works of Art, and for the erection of monuments as tribiites 

 to great men and pubhc benefactors. The Memorial of the 

 Exhibition of 1851, the result of private subscriptions, will ha 

 the first received in these grounds, and, adorned with a statue 

 of the Queen, will soon rise in the centre of the Garden. 



" May your efforts meet with public approbation. May that 

 approbation give you all the support required, not only further 

 to ornament these Gardens, but also to carry out, even on a 

 larger scale than during the last forty-eight years, the useful 

 objects for which you are incorporated." 



Immediately aftenvards, the Bishop of London, who was 

 attended by the Archdeacon of Middlesex and his Chaplain, 

 offered up suitable prayers for a blessing on the undertaking. 



The Prince Consort then stepped forward, and in a loud 

 voice declared the Garden to be Opened, amidst the cheers of 

 the surrounding spectators. 



The procession next proceeded to a point near the north- 

 east corner of the Arcades, where a tree was to be planted by the 

 Prince Consort, in commemoration of the occasion. A fine 

 WelRngtonia gigantea, the gift of Messrs. Veitch, had been 

 selected for the purpose. Dr. Lindley, in the " Gardeners' 

 Chronicle" of the week, thus describes the scene: "Surrounded 

 by the Council and other members of the procession, His Royal 

 Highness, having received a spade from a bystander, threw some 

 shovelfulls of earth over the roots for himself and the Princesses, 

 his daughters. The Princes acted for themselves, not the least 

 skilful among them being Prince Arthur, who handled the 

 spade with a vigour that showed him to have used well the 



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