Apeil l. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
17 
own way in the world; and in no part of the manage¬ 
ment did Mr. Aiton and he differ more essentially than 
in the naming of the plants,—Mr. Aiton’s plan being to 
have them numbered, and the names (with a correspond¬ 
ing number), inserted in a book, In 1828, Mr. Smith 
re-arranged and corrected the collection of Grasses, which 
was then very extensive; and these he was allowed to 
name, with cast-iron labels made on purpose, on which 
the botanical names were printed at length,—and these 
were the first ever used in the garden. The Succulent 
plants ho served in the same way. 
Shortly after the accession of her present Majesty the 
Botanic Garden came under public censure, as being 
unworthy of the nation. It was then under the control 
of the Lord Steward’s department, and ho who held the 
office at the time propounded a scheme for disposing of 
the Botanical collection, and converting the bouses into 
Viueries ; and so nearly was the project carried into 
effect, that instructions were given to prepare young 
Vine-plants. The Bates, however, decided otherwise; 
and on the second day after this order was given, a short, 
but strongly-worded, letter appeared in The Times, 
which led to questions being put in both Houses of 
Parliament, and which were answered by Government, 
denying that there was any such intention of breaking 
up the Botanic Garden. The writer of that letter 
deserves well of this generation. There are several who 
lay claim to the authorship of it; but we know that the 
real author is too modest to make a public boast of it. 
A stop being thus put to the Vine-growing and the 
extinction of the Botanic Garden, in 1888 a Com¬ 
mission was appointed to determine wdiat should be 
done with the Garden. Fortunately for Botany, as a 
science, Dr. Lindley was appointed chief of the Com¬ 
mission ; and the Report being in favour of the con¬ 
tinuation of the Botanic Garden under entirely different 
management, the expenses of the Garden were trans¬ 
ferred from the Queen’s Household to the Commissioners 
of Woods and Forests ; the retirement of Mr. Aiton was 
effected; and, in 1841, Sir William Jackson Hooker 
was appointed Director. Sir William, shortly after his 
appointment, and fully appreciating the worth of Mr. 
Smith, used his influence in obtaining for him the 
appointment of Curator We need not dwell on the 
great additions and improvements that have taken place 
under this new management. Kew Garden is now 
worthy of the great nation to which it belongs; and the 
nation may justly be proud of such an establishment, 
and with such men at the head of it. 
As a botanist, Mr. Smith is equally as celebrated as 
he is as a gardener. For a long period ho has devoted 
his time and attention to the study of Ferns; and, by 
1810, he had accumulated one of the richest collections 
of this tribe of plants which is to be found in this 
country. Ho drew up an account of the genera, which 
was read before the Liuntean Society, in 1810, and pub¬ 
lished in “ Hooker's Journal of Botany ” in the follow¬ 
ing year. He also made observations on the cause of 
the disease called the Ergot, in Rye and other grasses, 
which were published in the “Transactions of the Lin- 
naean Society,” of which he had been elected an Asso 
ciate; and in August, 1853, he was chosen a Member of 
the Cesarese Leopoldina-Carolinae Academite Naturae Cu- 
riosum,—the academical name of the late celebrated 
Pteridologist “ Kunze.” Pteridology, some may be glad 
to be told, is the Botany of Ferns. 
Mr. Loudon, in 183(5, when remarking on the necessity 
of a change in the management of the Botanic Garden 
said, “ Whatever changes may take place, we trust 
the merits of that modest and unassuming man, and 
thoroughly scientific botanist and gardener, Mr. Smith, 
will not be forgotten. If Mr. Aiton resigns, Mr. Smith 
is, we think, the fittest man in England for the Kew 
Botanic Garden;” and Sir AVilliam Hooker pays a just 
tribute, when be says the Garden would have been much 
worse, “ but for the truly parental affection cherished 
towards it by Mr. Aiton, and the able exertions of his 
foreman (now the curator) Mr. John Smith.” 
PHOSPHATE OF LIME. 
The introduction of the salt, known to chemists as the 
phosphate of lime, affords one of the most noticeable in¬ 
stances of the good results of applying science to the cul- | 
tivation of the earth. This improvement, like all other 
advances in agriculture, and its sister science, horticulture, 
has been the work of years; more than half a century has I 
elapsed, since the manures which have the phosphate of lime 
for their chief fertilising ingredient first attracted the notice 
of mankind; and when some experimental farmers of the 
north of England first made trial of the bones of animals 
(in which this salt abounds), they, as might be expected, 
made sundry grave blunders in the mode of applying them ; 
they used them unbroken, they' merely spread them over 
the surface of their pastures. Thus employed, the appli¬ 
cation was a failure ; the bones decomposed far too slowly 
to be of any apparent benefit, and their use was condemned. 
Some years elapsed before bones were crushed previously 
to their being thus employed, and before it was known that they 
then fermented, and finally and quickly became reduced to a 
valuable fertilising powder. Then, however, the demand 
for bones, especially for turnip soils, became very great. 
Our islands, and then the north of Europe, were searched 
for them; thousands of tons were annually imported into 
the port of Hull; finally, more distant countries were laid 
under contribution, and now many large cargoes are brought 
(after being previously calcined) from the shores of the 
La Plata. These last named are the bones of the cattle 
which once were killed only for their skins, were next-con¬ 
sidered equally valuable for their tallow, and now for their 
bones. But even when the use of bones was firmly estab¬ 
lished, and, indeed, for years afterwards, the popular ex¬ 
planation of their fertilising power was inaccurate, and 
worse than useless. Their value was attributed entirely to 
the grease and cartilage with which they abound. 
When, however, the Cheshire farmer began to find out 
that the refuse hones of the bone boilers were as useful as 
the fresh bones, and when Liebig, Daubeny, and others, 
further proved that the phosphate of lime of bones possessed 
a very considerable value as a manure; and when they, 
moreover, found that this phosphate of lime was rendered 
still more valuable by being converted into super-phosphate 
of lime; when these things were shown, a new and a more 
correct theory was adopted ; it then became evident that 
the phosphate of lime of the bones was their most valuable 
I portion ; that this salt was, in fact, the direct food of the 
plants to which it can be successfully applied. Then came 
an enormous demand for the phosphate of lime, which all 
the recently deposited bones of the New World were in- 
capable of satisfying. 
The manufacturing chemists were thus at a loss for ma¬ 
terials, when Henslow came to the rescue, by suggesting 
the employment of the phosphate of lime found in the 
coprolites and fossil bones of the Suffolk Craig, the Blue 
Lias of Dorset, and the Estuary of the Severn. 
The introduction of these coprolites into agriculture 
affords one of the most remarkable instances on record of 
the application of the remains of one generation of living ■. 
beings to the satisfying of the wants of far distant ages. ! 
It was, indeed, a proud achievement of science. As George j 
Canning once proudly and exultingly told the House of 
Commons, when alluding to a national difficulty, “ I thought 
of the New World, and I brought its southern republics into 
existence, as a counterbalance to the old States of Europe,” 
so might Henslow say — “I, too, amid the difficulties of 
modern farming, thought of the inhabitants of the Old 
World, and I suggested the use of their remains for the en¬ 
richment of the soil which supplies food for the present 
tenants of the earth.” 
But it is, perhaps, to poor Professor Buckland, that the 
merit is due of bringing coprolites into general notice. He 
first made their existence generally known in his Bridge- 
water Treatise, where he traces their discovery. “ It was, : 
