84 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



gardens were retained and some part of the labour of half a 

 century saved. 



Before briefly recounting the more recent history of the Society, 

 I may quote the claims justly advanced on its behalf by the Council 

 in their report of May 1, 1857 : — " For more than half a century 

 the Society has endeavoured to pursue the path traced out by its 

 charter. It has examined the qualities, and reduced to order the 

 names, of fruit trees and succulent plants ; it has directed the 

 attention of scientific as well as of practical men to the improve- 

 ment of the arts of cultivation ; it has introduced at much cost 

 great numbers of exotic plants to decorate our gardens ; it has 

 published many volumes filled with important treatises upon 

 almost every subject in which the gardener is interested ; it has 

 formed an extensive garden and orchard, in which have been 

 collected from time to time numerous plants, valuable for their 

 utility or beauty ; it has given a great impulse to cultivation by 

 its public exhibitions of garden produce ; it has been a school 

 from which have sprung some of the most distinguished 

 gardeners of the century ; and it has given away to its Fellows 

 and to public establishments above a million and a half of plants, 

 packets of seeds, and cuttings. In effecting this about £240,000 

 has been expended, of which £40,000 has been consumed in the 

 creation of the garden ; more than £2,000 in forming collections 

 of drawings, models of fruit, &c. ; £13,000 in the mere cost of 

 procuring new plants and seeds ; while above £20,000 has been 

 directly applied in the form of medals and money prizes for the 

 encouragement of horticulture." 



On the election of H.R.H. the Prince Consort as President in 

 1858 it was hoped, and for a time it seemed, that the Society's 

 difficulties were at an end. Under his auspices a lease of twenty 

 acres of land at South Kensington for thirty-one years was 

 arranged between the Royal Commissioners of the Exhibition of 

 1851 and the Society, the terms and conditions being embodied 

 in an original and two supplementary agreements, dated 18G0 and 

 18G1. By these the Royal Commissioners undertook to spend 

 £50,000 on arcades and earthworks, the Society agreeing to spend 

 a like sum on laying out the garden with fountains, aqueducts, 

 and statuary in the Italian style. Of the £50,000 to be provided 

 by the Society, £10,000 was obtained from donations, life com- 

 positions, &c, and£40,000 was raised on debentures. HerGracious 



