The late Sir B. T. Brandreth Gibbs. 
619 
proved to be true, turned out to be only biennials, never exceed- 
ing the third year." Mr. Gibbs was one of the first in England 
who grew the thousand-headed cabbage, and the kohl rabi, and 
the white Belgian carrot. The first roots of the Globe Mangolds, 
both yellow and red, ever exhibited in England, were grown by 
him in Bedfordshire, and shown at one of the Smithfield Club 
Meetings, in Old Goswell Street, when the subject of our 
Memoir was a boy at school. Many other agricultural plants, 
such as the Giant Sainfoin, Bromiis Schroederi, and others, 
were also brought into notice by him; and amongst his co- 
labourers at that time were Arthur Young, Sir Humphry Davy, 
Mr. Coke, afterwards Earl of Leicester, Mr. Don the botanist, 
and others. A large proportion of the great park at Windsor 
was laid down to permanent grass by the late Mr. Thomas Gibbs, 
so early in the century that he was then frequently in attend- 
ance on George III., who took great interest in his proceedings. 
Mr. Thomas Gibbs retired in 1847, after a long and suc- 
cessful career, in favour of his youngest son, Mr. Brandreth 
Gibbs. The father had been Seedsman to the Board of Agri- 
culture since 1797, and the son, then sole representative of 
the firm, was appointed Seedsman to the Royal Agricultural 
Society of England in 1844. I mention all these particulars, 
not only because it thus appears that Mr. Brandreth Gibbs 
received a training and an education from the outset in the 
midst of efforts to serve the English agriculturist, but because 
these facts, now stated almost for the first time, illustrate the 
quiet modesty of the man. Surely no one with so much to say 
of his past services, with so much to boast of in his current 
connection with Agricultural Societies and associations of all 
kinds, ever made less use of them for his personal advantage. 
With this reference to the most direct of all the agricultural 
services rendered by Sir Brandreth Gibbs, this short Memoir 
must conclude. No one could have exercised the offices which 
he held in connection with the Agricultural Society, whether as 
Honorary Director, President, or Seedsman, in a more perfectly 
unselfish manner. Entering his office, then in Half Moon Street, 
Piccadilly, one seemed at once to get out of the atmosphere of 
hot and almost angry rivalry, feverish competition, contest, 
push, and strife, from the midst of which many an energetic 
man has since emerged to take the lead, and by means of which 
so many others are still rapidly ascending the scale of notoriety 
and commercial success. 
There is little more to add : — A resolution bred of constancy, 
and tempered by kindliness and modesty, directed him, whether 
as the head of a great seed firm, or as the Director of a great 
National Agricultural Exhibition. It was in the midst of 
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