West Park and Kew, 1841-1865. Ixvii 
were being starved, and a structure of the dimensions at least 
of the Palm House, to rescue the magnificent collection of 
colonial trees, &c., from destruction or deformity, was 
urgently needed. The object of the proposed decorations 
seemed to be to rival the London parks, where such 
an attraction was eminently suitable and admirably carried 
out. In the end he came to an arrangement with his chief 
(Sir Benjamin Hall, I think), that a sum of money should be 
added to the estimates and appropriated to this decorative 
work, and that he be supplied with a skilled foreman to carry 
it out. The system was continued for several years, and was 
thereafter gradually suppressed. 
The years i860 to 1862 were notable for the success- 
ful efforts in introducing the Peruvian barks into India 
and our tropical colonies. Mr. (now Sir Clements) Markham 
had induced the Indian Government to undertake this mea- 
sure, which had been urged upon it by Sir Joseph Banks 
more than half a century before, and by various botanists 
since. Mr. Markham himself went to Peru, and brought 
to England living plants, which, after a short nursing 
at Kew, he took on to India and established in the Nilghiri 
Hills. Meanwhile my father, to whom the Indian Govern- 
ment applied for advice, not trusting wholly to the risky 
transport of living plants, urged that collectors should be sent 
to Ecuador and Bolivia for seeds of the different species, recom- 
mending at the same time the employment in Ecuador of 
Mr. R. Spruce, an able botanist and collector, who happened 
at the time to be in that country. 
In the Report on the progress and condition of the Royal 
Gardens during the year 1861 it is stated that ‘ The 
means adopted for introducing Cinchonas (trees yielding 
quinine) into the East Indies and our tropical colonies rank 
first in point of interest and importance of the works of the 
past year. In my Report for i860 I mentioned the erection, 
at the desire of the Secretary of State for India in Council, 
of a forcing-house, especially for the cultivation of the Cin- 
chonas, with the view of establishing plantations of them in 
