CHAPTER X 
KEW TO-DAY 
The organisation of Kew may be described in a few words. At the 
head of the establishment, but subject in matters of administration 
to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, is the director. 
of^Kew^ 011 ^ 1 ^ rn * S ves * e< ^ *he su P reme control of the gardens, 
Staff museums, herbarium, and police. His principal officers 
are an assistant director and three chiefs of departments ; 
the keeper of the herbarium, the curator of the gardens, and the 
keeper of the museums. His office is the centre of the establishment. 
Here he meets every morning the heads of departments, discusses 
with them work and correspondence, collates information from the 
respective branches, and distributes to those concerned such work, 
inquiries, etc., as have accumulated since the previous day. His 
office may be described as the clearing-house of Kew. The keeper 
of the herbarium is assisted by two principal assistants and seven 
assistants. The curator has one assistant curator and an office 
assistant ; besides being the centre controlling purely garden matters, 
his office is the place where accounts are kept and financial business 
conducted. The immediate control of the garden work is vested 
in five foremen, who have, for sectional charges, sub-foremen and 
gangers. The keeper of the museums, who has one assistant, is 
concerned chiefly with economic questions ; and the keeper of 
the laboratory with physiological ones. The total regular staff of 
Kew is as follows : — Director’s office, 4 ; herbarium and library, 16 ; 
museums and laboratory, 10 ; gardens, 140 ; constables and police, 25. 
To nine-tenths of the people who visit Kew the institution is not 
the headquarters of botany in the British Empire, nor the site on 
which a greater variety of plants is to be seen than any- 
Garden where else on the globe, nor a great centre and train- 
ing school in horticulture ; it is simply a beautiful 
garden — a place in which to spend a few pleasant hours. And whilst 
this is the most popular aspect of Kew we cannot say that it is the 
least important one. In 1907 nearly 3,000,000 visitors entered its 
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