lxix 
West Park and Kew , 1841-1865. 
years had elapsed that a system of paid lectures was organized, 
which have proved a great boon and success. 
In 1865, the last year of my fathers life, he received 
from the Lords of the Admiralty the gratifying intelligence, 
that his long-sustained exertions in sending such plants to 
the sterile Island of Ascension as would most effectively 
and speedily clothe its naked soil, and thus conserve a water 
supply, had been crowned with success. It was in 1843, 
after the return of Sir James Ross’s Antarctic Expedition, 
which had touched at the island on its homeward voyage, 
that the idea of planting that island extensively with 
such trees, herbs, and shrubs as were best suited to its soil 
and climate originated. Ascension being a naval station, the 
Admiralty favoured the idea, and Kew was applied to for 
aid in giving effect to it ; which it did by sending out seeds 
and cases of living plants year after year, and a succession 
of young gardeners to plant and sow. According to 
Captain Barnard’s Report to the Admiralty, ‘the island in 
1865 possessed thickets of upwards of forty kinds of trees, 
besides numerous shrubs and fruit trees, of which, however, 
only the Guava ripens. These afford timber for fencing cattle- 
yards.’ In 1843 there was but one tree on the island and no 
shrubs, and there were not enough vegetables produced to 
supply the Commandant’s table. The Report goes on to say : 
‘ Through the spread of vegetation the water supply is excel- 
lent, and the garrison and the ships visiting the island are 
supplied with abundance of vegetables of various kinds.’ 
The Arboretum , formerly the Royal Pleasure Grounds of 
Kew . In 1845 Mr. Aiton 1 was relieved of the charge of that 
portion of the Pleasure Grounds (about 178 acres) then in 
occupation of the King of Hanover as a game preserve, which 
had not been as yet added to the Botanic Gardens, together 
with the Deer Park (350 acres), and my father was asked to 
1 Mr. Aiton, on retiring with a pension of £1,000 per annum, had begged to be 
allowed to retain the Directorship of some portion of his realm, on the very 
natural plea that his services under the Royal Family might, if possible, be life- 
long. He died in Kensington, October 9, 1849, in his eighty-fourth year. 
