from May 1, 1830, to April 30, 1840. 423 



2. — Hothouse and Tender department. 



The very great importance for the purposes of the Society of 

 extensive protection for tender plants has ever been present to the 

 Council and Garden Committee ; in this, however, more than in any 

 other department, they have been necessarily impeded by the limited 

 resources of the Society. The construction of an extensive range of 

 Conservatories and hothouses had been planned at the first laying 

 out of the Garden, but for a long time there appeared little prospect 

 of acquiring means to carry the plan into effect, and the Garden 

 Committee were for several years obliged to confine themselves to 

 the small houses originally erected, and to the glazed brick pits, 

 with such small additions only as the exigency of the Garden 

 absolutely required ; the extent of glass of this description which, 

 in the year 1830 consisted of 405 feet running of hothouses, and 

 457 of pits, having increased to 439 feet of hothouses and 712 of 

 pits. 



But as the receipts from the exhibitions held at the garden from 

 the year 1833, when they were first established, showed in each year 

 a steadily increasing surplus over the expenses incurred, the Council 

 considered that they would scarcely be justified in continuing to apply 

 the whole of the income derived from the present Fellows of the 

 Society in liquidation of a debt incurred so long before. As soon 

 therefore as they had liberated themselves from all liabilities likely to 

 interfere with the due performance of the ordinary business of the 

 Society, and could consider the remainder of the debt as a loan to 

 be gradually paid off by instalments, they again brought under con- 

 sideration the long projected plan for a range of conservatories, and 

 as a preliminary step in the year 1835, they resolved that one half 

 of the clear proceeds of the Garden exhibitions should be laid aside 

 for this purpose. 



The sums thus accumulated would necessarily for some years 

 have been small when compared to the large outlay the new con- 



