SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER. 



928 



British Columbia, Edmonstone, followed by Seemann, to Western and 

 Arctic America in H.M.S. Herald, and the latter to the Fiji Islands with 

 Colonel Smythe's mission, Macgillivray to Torres Straits in H.M.S. 

 Rattlesnake, Milne to the Pacific in H.M.S. Herald, Spruce to Ecuador for 

 Cinchona seeds, and Hewett Watson to the Azores. The practice was 

 definitely abandoned when the great nurserymen took it up, and liberally 

 shared their proceeds with Kew in exchange for its Director's services in 

 indicating countries worth exploring, giving the collectors letters of re- 

 commendation to his correspondent abroad, naming and publishing their 

 novelties and rarities, &c. 



" In 1844 my father was instructed to prepare a Guide-book to the 

 Gardens for sale at the entrance, and to make an annual Report on the 

 progress and condition of the Gardens, to be laid before Parliament. 

 The first edition of the Guide-book contains fifty-six pages and sixty-one 

 woodcuts of objects exhibited. It was entitled ' Kew Gardens, or a 

 Popular Guide to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew,' by Sir W. J. 

 Hooker, Director. After bringing out twenty-one successive editions he 

 transferred the duty to Professor Oliver, the Keeper of the Library and 

 Herbarium, who in 1863 included the Arboretum in the Guide-book. 



" In 1853 a house in Kew, in possession of the Queen, having become 

 vacant through the death of its tenant (Sir George Quentin, Riding- 

 master to the family of George III.), Her Majesty was pleased to place 

 it at the disposal of the Commissioner of Works, to be in future the 

 residence of the Director of the Botanic Gardens, in which it was situated. 

 This was to my father a very great boon. He was in his sixty-ninth 

 year, and burdened with the duty of creating a National Arboretum in 

 the Pleasure Grounds, nearly two miles distant from West Park, and 

 demanding unremitting scientific supervision. Nor must it be forgotten 

 that his herbarium was outgrowing his accommodation for it, and that 

 his expenses all along far exceeded his official salary. The house was a 

 good one, facing the Green, with its back in the Gardens, but it would 

 not accommodate his library and herbarium, which, together with his 

 study and artist's room, occupied thirteen apartments in West Park. 

 Fortunately a large house closely adjacent to the Botanic Gardens, 

 which had formerly been occupied by the King of Hanover, afforded 

 abundant space for the herbarium and library, of which last he kept in his 

 study such works as were in frequent use. . . . 



" Returning to the operations in the Botanic Gardens, in about 1855 

 instructions were given to the Director (to his great discomfiture) to 

 decorate the lawns and borders of the paths over a considerable area of 

 the Botanic Gardens with 1 carpet-beds ' of flowers. These he regarded 

 as out of place in a garden where objects of as great beauty, and far 

 greater interest both popular and scientific, abounded. He further 

 regretted the great expenditure on propagating-pits, frames, soil, and 

 labour, on a show of but a few weeks' annual duration, whilst some 

 scientific branches of the establishment were being starved, and a 

 structure of the dimensions at least of the Palm House, to rescue the 

 magnificent collection of colonial trees, &c, from destruction or deformity, 

 was urgently needed. The object of the proposed decorations seemed to 



