THE 
FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
July 1, 1840. 
VISITS TO NURSERIES. NO. III. 
ROYAL GARDENS, KEW. 
We take some shame to ourselves for not making these gardens, 
which are the princeps ones in this country for the collection and 
cultivation of rare and interesting plants, more especially those of 
foreign and distant climates, the object of our first visit. But 
the subject of them, taken altogether, in its progressive history, 
its present state, and we fear also in some of its future prospects, 
is of such deep and varied interest, that we could not at once 
make up our minds to the consideration. 
Kew is altogether a delightful spot, and especially suited for 
those purposes to which it has so long, in as far as the gardens 
are considered, been devoted. We have nothing to do with any 
•g 
other of the numerous recollections which the mere mention or 
thought of it calls up,-—with the doings of kings and princes, the 
labours of philosophers, or the performances of artists, of which 
it has been successively the theatre. Our province is to look 
upon it as a place of plants and flowers, and in this respect it is, 
above all places within the four seas, sacred ground,—ground 
sacred to botanical science, and enriched by the fruits of the 
exertions of some of the most liberal, and industrious, and able, 
and successful promoters of the knowledge of the vegetable 
world, that ever adorned England or any other country. 
Even the locality has its charms ; for it consists of a very 
gently undulated surface, bordered on one side by one of the 
VOL. I. NO. IV. L 
