SIR WILLIAM HOOKER, 1841 TO 1850 35 
Admission of 
the Public. 
Gifts to the 
Gardens. 
A step which at once placed the establishment on a popular basis 
was the opening of the gardens and glass-houses to the public every week- 
day, from one to six in summer and to sunset in winter. 
This was a new and at the time was thought to be 
a hazardous experiment, for although in Aiton’s time 
the public had been admitted, they were always kept under super- 
vision. It was, however, found, as in later times when the numbers 
had increased a hundredfold, that little or no harm was done. During 
the first year (1841) the gardens were visited by 9,174 persons, among 
whom were many who justified the liberal policy of the director by 
becoming (as he himself records) interested friends and contributors 
to the institution. 
The influx of new plants into the gardens in these early years 
was so great as to become embarrassing in view of the re- 
stricted means of accommodating them which then 
existed. As an indication of the spirit engendered in 
the horticultural world by the new Kew, it may be 
mentioned that the Royal Horticultural Society passed a resolution 
that henceforth the seeds and plants received from their collectors 
abroad should, as they arrived, be divided with the Botanic Garden 
at Kew. The Queen and Prince Consort became interested in, and 
sent gifts to, the establishment. The Duke of Bedford’s entire col- 
lection of orchids at Woburn was given to the Queen for Kew. The 
leading nurserymen evinced a spirit of great generosity towards the 
place, as, indeed, they have always done. 
Nor was it at home alone that Kew found generous friends. There 
was scarcely any region in the globe where British subjects were 
stationed that was not drawn upon to enrich its 
collections. Dr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Hooker, who 
in 1839 had accompanied Sir James Clark Ross on his 
Antarctic expedition in the Erebus , sent home many plants from 
regions then little known. Notable among these plants were the 
remarkable beeches of Tierra del Fuego. There was scarcely a tropical 
plant of note which, if not already there, did not soon find its way 
to Kew. In Sir William Hooker’s first report (1844), he mentions 
as existing, among a multitude of others, such famous plants as bread- 
fruit, yam, rice, coffee, tea, sugar, cocoa, pepper, nutmeg, allspice, 
clove, ginger, ipecacuanha, cotton, teak, mahogany, and the Upas 
tree. 
Gifts from 
Abroad. 
