926 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



about the offices of the Gardens, some of them being the property of 

 Mr. Smith, the Curator. Procuring a few trestles and planks, he formed 

 of them a long table in the central room of the building, arranged all 

 these articles on it, ticketed them, and invited the Commissioners to come 

 and see them. This they did (I happened to be present on the occasion), 

 and listened to his eloquent discourse upon them, during which he 

 showed how such a collection of vegetable products might, besides 

 interesting and instructing the public, prove of great service to the 

 scientific botanist, the physician, the merchant, the manufacturer, the 

 chemist and druggist, the dyer, and to artisans of every description. All 

 these might find in such a collection the raw material (and to a certain 

 extent the manufactured article) employed in their several professions, 

 trades, or arts, correctly named, together with their native country and 

 some account of their history. 



" Before proceeding to describe the second and third museums erected 

 by my father, it is gratifying to relate that within six years of the first 

 being opened, eight others, professedly on the lines of that at Kew, were 

 established ; they were in Edinburgh, in the India House (London), in 

 Guiana, Jamaica, Melbourne, Calcutta, Madras, and in the Jardin des 

 Plantes, Paris. 



" In the summer of 1855 the Director was invited by the Imperial 

 Commissioners of the French International Exhibition of that year to 

 take part in its functions, which resulted in his obtaining almost the 

 entire collection of vegetable products there brought together. In aid 

 of this he procured a grant of £400 from the Treasury, which the 

 President of the Board of Trade, unasked, supplemented with a like sum. 

 Thus provided, and with the ready assistance of the officers of the Board 

 of Trade, and of the Science and Art Department, and enriched by 

 donations ,of many exhibitors, he secured and transmitted to Kew forty- 

 eight large cases of museum articles. This accumulation, and the fact 

 that the Museum of 1848 was already overcrowded, and the great stores 

 of specimens were being huddled away in the temples and sheds of the 

 Gardens, led to the erection of a second and much larger building. This, 

 which is Museum No. 1 of the Guide-book, was sanctioned by Parliament 

 in 1854, was completed, fitted with 13,000 square feet of glazed cases, 

 filled, and opened to the public in 1857. It is that now standing opposite 

 the Palm House, with the piece of water intervening. . . . 



" Herbarium and Library. — As stated at p. lvi,* when the new Director 

 of Kew took up his appointment, neither books nor a herbarium were 

 provided for him ; but he was well equipped with those of his own ; nor 

 was it till he was moved into residence in the Royal Gardens that he re- 

 ceived any other substantial aid towards their upkeep and increase than 

 house-rent, and latterly stationery and some cabinets. It is also told that 

 the new residence not affording that accommodation for these which the 

 Government had guaranteed, they were placed in a building adjacent to 

 the Botanic Gardens. On this occasion it was arranged between the 

 Commissioners and my father, that on the condition of his herbarium and 



* Annals of Botany, vol. xvi. 



