922 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



"Botanic Gardens proper. — The first recommendation of the new 

 Director was that these should be open to visitors on weekday afternoons 

 throughout the year, of which privilege upwards of 9,000 persons availed 

 themselves during the remaining nine months of the year. The next, 

 in 1842, was that the permission of Her Majesty should be asked to add 

 a few acres of the Pleasure Ground to the old Arboretum for the purpose 

 of opening a new entrance to the Gardens from Kew Green. This was 

 graciously granted, as were the far larger areas from time to time asked 

 for, of which the next (in 1843) was for forty-eight acres, to afford sites 

 for a new Pinetum, and for the erection of a Palm House far exceeding 

 in dimensions any previously constructed." 



Again it appears necessary to omit much interesting matter, this time 

 with reference to the early history of Kew under the new Director ; but 

 let us note a point of incidental information, that " the first hardy herba- 

 ceous collection in the Royal Gardens was formed in 1760, near the 

 Temple of the Sun. It was an acre in extent, contained 2,712 species, 

 and was called the Physic Garden." After a paragraph on the Palm 

 House, which was commenced in 1844, we read : " At this time the 

 activity of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests was far-reaching, for 

 it was in their contemplation to annex the Chelsea Botanic Gardens to 

 Kew and to form a Medical Garden for the use of the colleges and schools 

 of London. Referring to these schemes in letters to Mr. Dawson Turner, 

 my father in 1843 writes in respect of the formation of a Medical Garden : 



I It will be attended with many difficulties, but I shall encourage it, and 

 have written a long memorial to the Board about it.' In 1845 he writes : 



I I have to write to the " Woods " on an affair to be laid before the Queen 

 respecting a Medical Garden adjoining the Botanical Garden.' And 

 again in 1845 : ' My Report on the Gardens is printed by the House of 

 Commons, and my letter on the removing Chelsea Garden to Kew. 

 Lord Lincoln thinks it will result in that Garden being removed here, or 

 in Government forming here a Medical Garden on a national scale.' 

 Both schemes were abandoned. 



" In 1843 my father reverted to the plan followed during the palmy 

 days of Kew, when under the patronage of Sir Joseph Banks, of sending 

 collectors to distant countries for the purpose of transmitting plants and 

 seeds to the Royal Gardens ; and by way of lightening the demands on 

 the Treasury he on several occasions, with the Commissioners' approval, 

 invited the Duke of Northumberland and the Earl of Derby to contribute 

 to such expeditions and share the produce. At the same time, through 

 his influence at the Admiralty, he obtained the privilege of having all pack- 

 ages addressed to Kew coming by the Royal Mail West India Steam Packet 

 sent freight free. By these means Mr. Purdie was sent to New Grenada, 

 and Burke and Geyer to California and Oregon, with the most satisfactory 

 results to all parties ; and by similar arrangements with the Treasury, 

 Foreign, Indian, and Colonial Offices, there were subsequently sent 

 Oldham and Wilfred to Japan, Formosa, and Corea, Mann to the 

 Cameroons, Gaboon River, and Fernando Po, Baikie and Barter to the 

 Niger, Kirk to the Zambesi with Livingstone, Meller to East Africa and 

 Madagascar, myself to the Himalaya, Bourgeau to Canada Lyall to 



