FLOWER EXHIBITIONS. ' 
81 
u except what is wanted for government purposes.” The public 
are, in fact, to have no voice or interest in the matter; and yet 
the garden is professedly to be for the public. 
Of the body of the report we may speak in the words of Dr. 
Lindley :—“ One might call it a provisional creation waiting to be 
organized;” for, as it is, it comes exactly to Crambo’s abstract 
idea of a lord mayor. Of the spirit, we must say a few words, 
but they shall be very few. There runs through the entire report 
a querulous disposition to find fault with Mr. Aiton, and to in¬ 
sinuate that he ought not to have the direction of the gardens ; 
although it is as notorious as the sun at noon day, that if any thing 
has been wrong, it has been solely owing to the manner in which 
he has been stinted in accommodation, and in time ; and we ques¬ 
tion whether, if so stinted, any other man could have preserved 
the plants in that clean and healthy condition, and vigorous 
growth, which they display at the present moment. Instead, 
therefore, of any cause of complaint, except against parties over 
whom those who were labouring silently and successfully in these 
gardens had no control, there are just grounds of high commenda¬ 
tion. More than this, there is something to be remembered, 
—something for which the nation and the world ought to be 
grateful. It is here that the grand impulse to botanical pursuits 
in this country was given ; and Mr. Aiton, sen. was the architect 
who designed the structure, and was the main cause of concentrating 
the materials there. Ninety years have passed away since he 
began those labours, and they have been continued to the present 
moment by himself and his son successively. The members of the 
commission must know this. And they are botanists ; and that 
botanists should name the name of Aiton with any thing but 
gratitude, is like rapacious and ruthless farmers driving the 
ploughshare through the sepulchres of their fathers for the “ filthy 
lucre”—of another bushel of grain. 
FLOWER EXHIBITIONS, 
AT FLORAL SOCIETIES, OR ASSOCIATIONS. 
Authenticated Reports for this list, which will be continued 
from time to time, and which is intended to embrace all parts of 
the United Kingdom, are respectfully solicited, and will meet with 
VOL. I. NO. iv. 
M 
