MAY 1, 1847. 



171 



From this it appears that the total number of workmen per- 

 manently employed by the Society in the course of the first 

 twenty-five years of the establishment of the Garden has been 

 264. Of these 41 have been discharged for various reasons, 13 

 have deserted, generally shortly after their arrival, from finding 

 the discipline of the Garden distasteful to them ; 3 have been 

 allowed to resign, and 13 have died or left in bad health : in the 

 whole, 70 are from these causes to be struck off the list of the 

 men who have steadily applied themselves to improvement in the 

 Garden. Of the 194 forming the remainder, 111 have been re- 

 commended to places ; but the 62 who are returned as having 

 left at their own request, are in almost all cases men who have 

 procured places for themselves, without the aid of the Society ; 

 so that if these two numbers are united, we learn, that out of 

 194 steady men, 173 have been placed in situations upon leaving 

 the Garden ; of these 90 were English, 61 Scotch, 10 Irish, 6 

 Welsh, and 6 foreigners. 



But although this return affords no ground for dissatisfaction 

 with the kind of instruction attainable in the Garden, it has 

 been long felt that the advancing intelligence of all the educated 

 classes of society in this country rendered it desirable that 

 better means of acquiring information should be provided. With 

 this view the Garden Committee in the autumn of last year re- 

 commended the establishment of a reading-room in the Garden, 

 for the use of the workmen. At that time the state of the 

 funds of the Society did not authorize the Council to incur the 

 expense of erecting a building for this purpose ; but they recom- 

 mended that some temporary arrangement should be made, in 

 order to see how the plan would work. An empty room was 

 therefore appropriated to the purpose, and by means of old ma- 

 terials fitted up so as to be habitable. Some duplicate and 

 other books were selected from the Society's library ; various 

 persons interested in the promotion of the object presented 

 others ; a few were purchased at the expense of the Society ; 

 rules were drawn up under the direction of the Garden Com- 

 mittee, and on the 23rd of November the room was opened for 

 study, with a lecture from the Vice Secretary. Since that time 

 ten lectures have been delivered on points of physiological and 

 practical importance bearing on Gardening, two on the elements 

 of Geometry, and one on Physical Geography. An examina- 

 tion in the Elements of Geometry has been also held, and an- 

 other has been appointed, at which a friend of the Garden has 

 offered as a prize a copy of Dr. Badham's work on British Fun- 

 guses, a book of much value to gardeners, but too dear for many 

 of them to purchase. 



Notwithstanding the unfitness of the present room for its pur- 



