On the Cultivation of Rare Plants. 



more than double the number of exotic plants known to him 

 in 1768 ? How would he have been still more delighted to 

 have witnessed his own liberal principles descending, and 

 emanating in the son of his favourite pupil, who then distri- 

 buted so largely amongst us all, bulbs of the magnificent 

 Lilium Tigrinum; and who, upon beimg asked by your Secre- 

 tary for a plant still more rare, told him, in the very words 

 of Mr. Philip Miller to Boerhave's gardener, to "help 

 himself to whatever he wished for" ? 



Nothing is stated in the following pages that is not the 

 result of my own experience : but it would be very ungrateful 

 in me not to mention, next to the names of the late Mr. Aiton 

 and his son, those of Messrs. Lee and Kennedy; and of 

 Mr. Donn, who after being the right hand of his master for 

 so long a period at Kew, has raised the Cambridge garden to 

 a degree of clelebrity it had nevei attained before : by all of 

 whom, many hints and instructions, now fully detailed, were 

 originally given. For much valuable matter, relative to the 

 soil and places of growth of Cape and West India plants, 

 always communicated without the slightest reserve, and so 

 essential to the working gardener, I am indebted to the late 

 Mr. Francis Masson. Still more lately, I have gained a 

 great deal of useful knowledge of this sort, from the manu- 

 script tickets of Mr. James Niven, who travelled several 

 years in various districts of the Cape, at the expense of 

 George Hibbert, Esq. From that gentleman's gardener 

 also, Mr. Joseph Knight, who in so short a period brought 

 his master's late collection, at Claph am, to a state of unri- 

 valled beauty, and now labours, as successfully, on his own 

 account, at Little Chelsea, I have learnt many points necessary 



