294 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I am sure, much enjoy and apjDreciate it, and always tell me they have 

 gathered some new ideas. 



I have been often greatly surprised, when visiting some of the well- 

 known parks and gardens of England, to find that the head gardener 

 knew little or nothing of other well-known places even in the same county, 

 and, though his own particular work might be very well carried out, had 

 few ideas beyond what was to be found in his own surroundings. 



The responsibility for this lies doubtless less upon them than upon the 

 owners or managers of the parks, public or private, as the head gardeners 

 can hardly be expected to travel about the country altogether at their own 

 expense. 



In conclusion, I should like to say that in the management of public 

 parks there is an immense variety of questions affecting the public who 

 frequent them, irrespective of horticulture and arboriculture, but in their 

 way of quite as much importance and calling for quite as much attention 

 and special knowledge. 



I allude, for example, to the formation of rides, roads and footpaths, 

 on which alone a treatise might be written showing the difterent treat- 

 ment called for in almost every park, and the difficulty of meeting the 

 demands of the public for perfection in all. 



A subject which interests almost if not quite as many people in the 

 London Parks as horticulture is that of the birds, especially the collec- 

 tion of wildfowl, in St. James's Park and elsewhere. I am not going 

 to trouble you with many details regarding them, but may mention that 

 the cormorants, which have been a great interest to the public for many 

 years, were taken by myself from nests (if they can be called nests) on 

 the Farne Islands, where I went with our invaluable birdkeeper, Reilly, 

 who, I regret to say, died last year, and was a grievous loss to us. 



We brought away at the same time a number of kittiwakes, terns, 

 guillemots and puffins, but regret to say we lost them all, and I fear there 

 is no doubt the last two at any rate can never be acclimatised, so to speak, 

 in London. Even in the Zoological Gardens they have never succeeded, 

 so far as I know, in keeping them for more than a very short time. The 

 experiments we have made, our failures and successes in the introduction 

 of birds of all kinds and their preservation in the London parks, might 

 form the subject of a paper by itself. 



Another very interesting question is the treatment of the verges of the 

 lakes and ponds, and the difficulties we meet with in dealing with them 

 in an artistic manner, owing to the fact that the public will not be satisfied 

 unless they can get down to the water itself, to boat, bathe, swim their 

 dogs, and sail their model yachts. Complaints in these respects are 

 common, regarding, e.g., the banks of the Serpentine and the lake in 

 Regent's Park, from people of artistic temperament, who fail to realise 

 the conditions with which we have to deal. 



The provision of seats and chairs is quite a special branch. In the 

 Central Parks, i.e. Hyde Park, St. James's, Green Park, and Kensington 

 Gardens alone, we have between 30,000 and 40,000 chairs, and in dealing 

 with them an amount of attention and organisation is required which is 

 perhaps not generally and fully realised. Questions of trespasses and 

 boundaries, particularly in historical estates like the Royal Parks, involve 



