PREFACE. 



William Townsend Aiton, Esq., Mr. William For- 

 syth, and Mr. James Dickson, Mr. Wedgwood presided, 

 and such Resolutions were passed as were deemed necessary 

 for the immediate regulations of the infant Society. It was 

 also agreed, that each of these original Members should have 

 the privilege of recommending three persons to become 

 Members ; and on the fourteenth of the same month a second 

 Meeting was held at Mr. Hatchard's, when the name of 

 John Hawkins, Esq. was added to the number of original 

 Members, with a similar privilege of nomination. 



From the year 1804, to the spring of 1809, the Society 

 continued to increase ; the Members, after the first nomina- 

 tions, being chosen by ballot ; and as it was daily acquiring 

 a character which promised fair to place it beyond the vi- 

 cissitudes arising from fashion or caprice, those Gentlemen 

 who took an active share in its direction, felt the propriety 

 of obtaining its incorporation by Royal Charter. This was 

 accomplished ; and the Charter, as will be seen, bears date 

 the seventeenth of April, 1809- 



From a very early period of the Society, its proceedings 

 had been in course of publication, and in the year 1812 

 the First Volume was completed. It will not be surprising 

 that so much time was occupied in its formation, when it is 

 considered, that in their infancy, all public Institutions are 

 necessarily less capable of effort than in their more advanced 

 stages. But although the Transactions of the Horticultural 

 Society had met the public eye at considerable intervals of 



