6o ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW 
New Plant 
houses. 
ments, no doubt, the more robust health of the hothouse plants is 
largely due. 
Of entirely new houses, the first erected during Sir W. Thiselton- 
Dyer’s directorate was the Alpine House, in 1887. At that time 
the system of cultivating Alpine plants as illustrated 
in this house was quite new. It proved so charming 
and so popular with the public that the house was 
enlarged in 1891. In 1892 a small house for filmy ferns was built 
against the Tropical Fernery. They had previously been grown in 
glass cases in other houses. The Nepenthes House was erected in 
1897. Of more importance than all of these was the completion of 
the Temperate House, so long desired and so long delayed. The 
south wing, or Mexican House, was commenced in 1895 and opened 
to the public in 1897. Soon afterwards, the north wing, or Himalayan 
House, was begun, and the whole structure was completed, planted, 
and opened to the public on May 1st, 1899. All these houses will 
be dealt with in detail later. 
It will have been gathered from what has been written in earlier 
pages that one of the most important functions of Kew, ever since 
1841 — and, to some extent, previously — has been 
to help in the development of the British Colonies, 
both new and old, by fostering industries con- 
nected with plant-life. The years that have passed since 1890 have 
been very successful ones in this respect. The following testimony, 
extracted from a speech by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in the House 
of Commons on August 2nd, 1898, will show how much, in the opinion 
of one of the most famous of Colonial Secretaries, the Colonies owe 
to Kew : “ I do not think it is too much to say that at the present 
time there are several of our important Colonies which owe whatever 
prosperity they possess to the knowledge and experience of, and 
the assistance given by, the authorities at Kew Gardens. Thousands 
of letters pass every year between the authorities at Kew and the 
Colonies, and they are able to place at the service of those Colonies 
not only the best advice and experience, but seeds and samples of 
economic plants capable of cultivation in the Colonies.” 
The chief fields of activity have been the West Indies and British 
Tropical Africa. The decline of the cane-sugar industry in the West 
Indies, due to the competition of bounty-fed beet sugar produced in 
Central Europe, created a very serious crisis in the fortunes of those 
Mr. Chamberlain 
on Kew. 
