Deoember 1, 1887'. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
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COMING EVENTS 
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2nd Sunday in Advent. 
THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
o announced in our columns last week the 
Council of this Society have decided on a 
course of action which we feel convinced will 
meet with warm acceptance from the horti¬ 
cultural community. In the opinion of the 
vast majority of persons interested in the 
welfare of the Society the South Kensington 
connection has continued too long. As we 
have previously stated, it has been the alliance of the 
Society with the world of fashion, which it has had to 
■share in feeding, that has crippled its nower for pro¬ 
moting its legitimate work, and has thereby alienated 
those who ought to be its natural supporters—horticul¬ 
turists of various grades all over the country. For a long 
time past the location of the Society at South Kensington 
has been, to employ a mild term, unfortunate, eventually 
becoming practically unendurable, until at length a 
decision had to be arrived at to enter into a fresh engage¬ 
ment with the Royal Commissioners of the 1851 Exhibi¬ 
tion. for a further tenure, or seek a habitation for ad¬ 
ministrative purposes elsewhere. The latter alternative 
lias been chosen, and we believe has been chosen wisely. 
The Royal Horticultural Society has been established, 
not very firmly at times, at South Kensington for twenty- 
six years. The meeting at which the decision was arrived 
that the. Society should make the gardens there and 
continue in possession under certain stipulations was held 
on June 9th, 1859. At that time the late Prince Consort 
was in full activity in promoting objects connected with 
the arts and sciences that he believed to be for the public 
good; the Court was gay, and rank and fashion gave 
countenance to the great undertaking. Everything looked 
bright on the surface, and in 1860 twelve members of the 
Royal Family joined the Society, and the following year 
Her Majesty granted permission for it to be styled the 
Royal Horticultural Society. By the agreement effected 
the Royal Commissioners as landlords, and the Society 
as tenant under a thirty-one years lease, were each 
bound to expend £50,000 in the formation of the gardens. 
For controlling and regulating the expenditure a com¬ 
mittee of six persons were nominated—three by the Com¬ 
missioners and three by the Society, the chairman being 
selected by the former, and to have “two votes in case 
of an equality in voting.” That insidious proviso placed 
the Society at the mercy of the Commissioners, who 
naturally desired to increase the value of their property 
by offering inducements that would make the gardens the 
rendezvous of the fashionable world, and in one year 
.=63000 was actually expended in music to that end. The 
policy adopted was totally antagonistic to the objects for 
No. 388. —Yol. XV., Third Series. 
which the Society was established, and which are defined 
in its charter. 
It may not be without interest at this juncture to 
glance at the origin of the Society and a few salient points 
in its history. It is not uncommon to hear opinions 
expressed that it was never at such a “ low ebb ” as at 
the present time. Human nature is perhaps prone to 
regard the last calamity the greatest, but far greater 
difficulties beset the Society in past times than have to be 
encountered now, and as the greater were surmounted 
surely there is good hope that the lesser will be removed. 
Reverting, however, to the Society’s commencement and 
eaily career, we find it was originated by John Wedg¬ 
wood, the first proposition occurring in a letter to Mr. 
Forsyth, dated June 29th, 1801, and on which the opinion 
of Sir Joseph Banks was desired by the writer. On 
March 8th, 1802, Mr. Wedgwood wrote to Mr. For¬ 
syth :—“ It is now proposed to form a Society for the sole 
purpose of encouraging horticulture in all its branches, 
to form a repository for all the knowledge that can be 
collected on the subject, and to give a stimulus to the 
exertions of individuals for its farther improvement.” 
The Society was founded by resolutions adopted at a 
meeting held on March 7th, 1804, under Mr. Wedg¬ 
wood’s presidency, and was incorporated as the Horti¬ 
cultural Society of London on April 17th, 1809, for, as 
is stated in its charter, “the improvement of horticulture 
in all its branches, ornamental as well as useful,” though 
attention, according to Mr. Knight, was to be chiefly 
confined to the latter. After a more or less satisfactory 
career, during which the cardinal objects were kept 
steadily in view, the Society established a small experi¬ 
mental garden at Kensington in the commencement of 
the year 1818; but this being found too limited and too 
much within the influence of the London atmosphere, it 
was determined to seek another site, and the Chiswick 
garden, then thirty-three acres, was taken on a lease 
renewable for ever, and the stock removed there early in 
1822. That is in brief its early record. 
Now let some of its vicissitudes be recalled, and the 
very fact of their being surmounted ought to point directly 
to the recovery of prosperity from the present time ; and 
if this does not follow it must be through a lack of admin¬ 
istrative power as compared with that which rescued the 
Society from its previous difficulties. They appear to 
have commenced soon after the acquisition of Chiswick, 
which was too great for the resources of the Society; and 
the incurring of obligations too great to be met has been 
the rock on which it has been nearly wrecked time after 
time. In 1830 the Hansadions, which had been pub¬ 
lished since 1809, was abandoned, as the Society was 
found to have been “ mismanaged almost to ruin.” That 
was during Mr. Salisbury’s term as Honorary Secretary. 
He was succeeded by Mr. Sabine in 1810, who at first 
improved the Society so markedly that a gold medal was 
awarded to him in 1816. He appears to eventually have 
become by the adoption of a pushing policy “ not only 
the Secretary, but the President, Council, and head gar¬ 
dener,” and indulged in lavish expenditure for “increas¬ 
ing the imposing aspect of the Society,” until its debts 
amounted to upwards of £18,000. Yet there was not a 
shadow of a suspicion on Mr. Sabine’s honesty. The 
mistake was that “ he did not stop to calculate whether 
the income of the Society was equal to his determined 
expenditure; but with a rashness as fatal to a society’s 
as to an individual’s prosperity he resolved on an expen¬ 
diture, and trusted to hope for increasing the income up 
No. 2044.— Yol. LXXVIL, Old Series. 
