GARDENING UNDER WILLIAM AND MARY 217 
and two were flourishing in 1820, and one remained until 
1904. 1 Before this visit to the garden, he must have paid many 
others, as he made most of his botanical studies there, and was 
encouraged and assisted by Ray. Sloane (born 1660) had been 
abroad and studied medicine at Montpelier, where a Botanical 
Garden had existed since 1598. Long years before he con¬ 
veyed the land to the apothecaries he was famous for his 
assiduous studies of Natural History. The first volume of his 
great work on Jamaica and the West Indies was published in 
1707. He was in Jamaica as physician to the Duke of Albemarle, 
the Governor, who died there suddenly, and Sloane returned to 
England, having in fifteen months collected a large number of 
curiosities, and no less than eight hundred species of plants. 
He lived at Chelsea all the latter part of his life, and died there 
in 1752. His fame as a naturalist is scarcely less than as 
a physician. The great Linnaeus as a young man came to 
England to see him in 1736. On every occasion he was the 
encourager and friend of gardeners, of which the following letter 
is an example : 
Sir Henry Goodricke to Sir Hans Sloane. Ribstan, near 
Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire, 17 
Sir, 
The civilitys I have received from you do incourage 
me to give the trouble of a letter, and knowing you to be one 
who loves to incourage curiosity makes me hope that the 
subject of my letter won’t be so disagreable to you as to 
another. It is to desire of you that if among your rarities you 
have any number of seeds, nuts or kernells of foreign and rare 
trees especially those that are hardy I shall verily thankfully 
pay for ’em, my pleasure being to raise such things in hot beds 
and preserve ’em with care ; and I would not rob you of any 
but what you have so many as you may readily spare a part 
to one who will as readily supply you again when any accident 
1 This tree was almost dead “when the new management took over 
the garden in 1898, and their care could not save it. It became infested 
with a fungus, which was rapidly spreading to other trees, and had to 
be cut down in March, 1904. I give a more full account of the history 
of the garden and these cedar trees in London Parks and Gardens, 
Constable, 1907. 
