64 ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW 
gates — a fact more eloquent, perhaps, of its value to the community 
than any other that could be adduced. Kew has one peculiar charm 
which appeals to and draws all classes alike. Without regarding it 
as the home of the richest plant collections in the world, and looking 
upon it as a public garden merely, it has an air of detachment from 
the great city whose tentacles are rapidly encircling it, that no public 
