DECEMBER. 
271 
fruit: — “The plant -which produced these 
fruit is about eight years old, and for the first 
six years it grew luxuriantly, but very rarely 
showed a blossom. In the autumn of 1863 
the roots were pruned within 2 feet of the 
stem, and then enclosed with brickwork; the 
following autumn there was one or two small 
fruit on the plant, which did not ripen. This 
season the plant has produced seventeen fine 
fruit, of which these are specimens. The 
plant has been grown under glass in an 
orchard-house without artificial heat, except¬ 
ing during the cold weather of the past three 
weeks.” The Fruit Committee awarded a 
special certificate to Mr. Downing for the 
splendid fruit he had thus developed. 
OBITUARY. 
Within a few months we have had to record 
the loss of two great men, whose lives and 
whose labours were connected with horticul¬ 
ture—Sir Joseph Paxton, and Sir "William 
Hooker—the one great as a gardener, as an 
architect, and as being associated with vast 
commercial undertakings; the other an as¬ 
siduous worker in the quieter domains of 
botanical research, but not less deserving well 
cf his country. To these names we have now 
to add a third in Dir. John Lindley, who 
expired at his residence, at Acton Green, on 
Wednesday, the 1st of November. Few men 
had gone through a greater amount of labour 
than he had, and few men were better fitted 
from their natural strength of constitution to 
endure it; but at last the brain gave way, it 
gradually softened, and this malady went on 
increasing and increasing till it terminated in 
apoplexy. Disorders of the brain and diseases 
of the heart are alarmingly on the increase ; 
they seem to be evils inseparable from a high 
state of civilisation, in which the brain is 
overtaxed, and the organisation of the heart 
affected to a degree, and by circumstances, 
almost unknown to our ruder ancestors. 
Dr. Lindley was bom at Catton, near Nor¬ 
wich. on February 5th, 17 99, where his father, 
Mr. George Lindley, a portly and robust Nor- 
folk-man, was a nurseryman, and to whom 
we owe the “ Guide to the Orchard and 
Kitchen Garden,” a work of considerable 
usefulness and merit, but which never, some¬ 
how, met with the appreciation which it de¬ 
served. Dr. Lindley was educated under Dr. 
Yalpy, at the Grammar School of Norwich— 
that city of botanists—and he left there at 
the age of sixteen, and remained with his 
father for some years. In 1819 he published 
a translation of “ Richard’s Analyse du Fruit,” 
and this was followed by “ Rosarum Mono- 
graphia” in 1820. Previous to the appearance 
of the latter, Lindley had, in consequence of 
his father’s failure in business, come to London, 
where, through the introduction of his friend 
Mr., afterwards Sir William, Hooker, he was 
introduced to Sir Joseph Banks. Through 
the recommendation of the latter he was em¬ 
ployed by Mr. Cattley to edit “ Collectanea 
Botanica,” which appeared in 1821; and in 
the same year he published “ Digitalium 
Monographia.” Soon afterwards the forma¬ 
tion of the Chiswick Garden of the Horti¬ 
cultural Society was commenced, and of this, 
in 1822, he became Garden Assistant Secre' 
tary, at the salary of £120 a-year, there being 
another Assistant Secretary whose duties were 
chiefly confined to the London business of 
the Society. In 1823 he married the daughter 
of Anthony Freestone, Esq., of St. Margaret’s, 
Southelmham, Suffolk. In 1826, through the 
misconduct of the then Assistant Secre¬ 
tary of the Society, Lindley was appointed 
to that post, having to attend daily at the 
London office, in Regent Street, as well as at 
the Garden; and this post he held up to 1858, 
with, however, a change of title in 1841 to 
that of Vice-Secretary, when, on the retire¬ 
ment of Mr. Bentham from the Secretaryship, 
most of the duties of the latter office were 
transferred to Dr. Lindley. The interval 
between 1826 and 1841 was a precarious one 
for the Horticultural Society; a heavy debt 
had accumulated, partly in consequence of the 
immense cost of the old hot-pressed quarto 
“Transactions,” embellished with expensive 
coloured plates, partly in consequence of the 
formation of the Chiswick Garden, but more 
than all from a generally lavish expenditure. 
The crisis arrived in 1830 ; there was a rup¬ 
ture between Mr. Lindley and his friend Mr. 
Sabine; there was a prolonged investigation 
into the Society’s affairs ; many things that 
were objectionable in the management were 
disclosed ; the debt was large, and the mem¬ 
bers’ subscriptions were greatly in arrear; 
but the resources and the vitality of the 
Society were still great, and no one thought 
its position hopeless.. These circumstances 
led to the retirement of Mr. Sabine, the Se¬ 
cretary, ahigh-minded and honourable gentle¬ 
man who, however he may have erred in the 
administration of some of the affairs of the So¬ 
ciety, had done more perhaps than any man to 
raise it to a position of usefulness,and to further 
the objects for which it was founded. After 
Mr. Sabine’s retirement a large share of the 
active duties of the Secretary devolved on Mr. 
Lindley, and most assiduously did he perform 
them. By degrees the Society recovered its 
position; exhibitions, which had been tried 
before and failed, were re-established on a 
new basis, and became fashionable, and the 
result was a large accession to the funds and 
a great reduction of the heavy debt. This 
once touched a point so low that its speedy 
extinction seemed probable; but evil days 
came ; weather was unfavourable ; a Chiswick 
fete came to be regarded as synonymous with 
a wet day, the attendance fell off, and the 
number of the Society’s members, too, affairs 
became desperate, and that which had never 
been entertained in 1830 under a much heavier 
load of debt, the break-up of the Society— 
