MODERN GARDENING 
307 
first opened to the public in 1841 the numbers could be reckoned 
in tens of thousands. They increased on such occasions as 
the inauguration of the palm-house, or in the year of the Great 
Exhibition of 1851, when there were as many as 327,900. By 
the eighties the yearly visitors amounted to 1,000,000, and in 
1900 there were 1,111,024. I 9°7 no less than 2,962,714, 
and in 1908 2,710,220 individuals went to see the gardens. 
This immense rise during the last few years cannot be solely 
accounted for by the improved facilities for reaching Kew; 
some proportion must be due to the deepening appreciation of 
horticulture. 
Another gauge of the advance of gardening in popularity is 
the growth of the number of Fellows belonging to the Royal 
Horticultural Society. For many years they had been on the 
upward grade, but within the last decade they have gone up 
by leaps and bounds. In 1900 there were 4,750, but the end 
of 1908 saw 10,507 Fellows enrolled. The increase is partly due 
to the wider sphere of work which was opened to the Society by 
the munificent gift of the garden which had belonged to Mr. 
G. F. Wilson at Wisley, in Surrey, by the late Sir Thomas Han- 
bury. He will always be remembered as one of the most 
generous and enthusiastic of gardeners by his numerous friends 
in this country, as well as by those who were acquainted with 
his garden at La Mortola. At Wisley a valuable School of 
Horticulture is being carried on, as well as a delightful and in¬ 
structive garden. Some Fellows have no doubt joined the 
Society merely because their friends have done so, and the 
shows afford a pleasant meeting-place ; but an immense majo¬ 
rity are possessed of no mean knowledge, and the standard of 
attainment they must be judged by is higher than that of fifty 
years ago. Apart from a small proportion who have acquired 
merely the phraseology of gardening, the very large number 
of men and women who have a real insight of the subject would 
astonish the gardening experts of a former generation. 
The recently stimulated desire to “ garden finely ” has pro¬ 
duced a distinct style, which differs in many ways from any of 
the former fashions which have had their day. Although the 
main ideas of a “ wild garden ” have not been abandoned, there 
has been a certain return to formality. Clipped trees and 
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