lxx Sir William Jackson Hooker . 
include these in his Directorate. This he agreed to do, 
though no hint of an increase of salary accompanied the 
request, and though the duties involved were neither botani- 
cal nor horticultural, but rather agricultural. He had no 
doubt two good reasons for this compliance, one in having 
an eye to the remainder of the Pleasure Ground as the site 
for an Arboretum worthy of the nation ; the other, that to 
have allowed these to be placed under any other authority 
might have led to complications. 
Thus the Director’s rule was extended in four years from 
a Botanic Garden of eighteen acres and a few hundred yards 
in length, to an area of nearly 650 acres, extending from Kew 
Green to the Thames at Richmond, two miles distant. Some 
idea may be formed of the labour which this acceptance of 
extra duty entailed from the following extract of a letter 
dated March, 1846, and addressed to Mr. Turner: he says, 
‘ For myself the Gardens have never made such demands on my 
time as at the present season, when the most extensive opera- 
tions are being carried on in the Pleasure Ground, as well as 
in the Botanic Gardens. In each place our usual comple- 
ment of men is much more than doubled. In the former, 
owing to the severe illness of the foreman, I have to super- 
intend everything, and there is literally not a man in whom 
I can put confidence about the place. I have lately detected 
very gross abuses, which there is every reason to believe have 
been practised for a long time under the regime of my 
predecessor.’ 
With regard to the Deer Park, often then called Richmond 
Old Park, except for planting some clumps of trees and 
shrubs, it suffered no change so long as my father had charge 
of it. It was let to a grazier and yielded large crops of hay. 
The Observatory 1 , which stands towards the centre of it, was 
1 The Observatory was erected in 1798 by George III for the purpose of 
observing the transit of Venus, and for the instruction of the younger members of the 
Royal family in astronomy. For many years it was devoted to scientific pur- 
poses, under the direction of accomplished astronomers; and served for regulating 
the clocks in the Horse Guards, St. James’s Palace, and elsewhere in London. In 
1840 its contents were dispersed, and the principal instruments sent to King’s 
