100 
THE FLORISTS JOURNAL. 
is certainly a great convenience for students of flowers. It ought 
to be extended to every day in the week ; but the scanty sum now 
devoted to the gardens is probably inadequate to the maintenance 
of so many attendants as this would render necessary. Indeed it is 
obviously the want of sufficient funds which is the grand, and hither¬ 
to unremoved cause of whatever inferiority may be found in the 
gardens. Under their stinted circumstances the director and those 
whom he employs have acted the wisest part that they could 
possibly have done. They have paid every attention to the 
plants ; and those plants are from so many different regions of 
the world, so different in their habits, and consequently in the 
modes of treatment which they require, that none but one inti¬ 
mately skilled in the vegetation of the world, and the various 
climates to which every section of it is best adapted, can form any 
thing like an adequate idea of the skill and attention which must 
have been exerted in bringing the collection to its present state. 
It has to be borne in mind that many of the plants, especially of 
those from countries of whose physical circumstances we know' 
the least, have to be raised from seeds ; and therefore the culti¬ 
vator has to study the whole progressive history of the plant. 
In visiting the gardens, the direct entry to the botanical gar¬ 
den from Kew Green is not the best one for those w T ho wish to 
be impressed with the effect of the whole. The way from the 
pleasure grounds, through the arboretum, is the best. The plea¬ 
sure grounds are simply a park, consisting of open glades, inter¬ 
spersed with clumps and masses of trees, many of them stately, 
and not a few different in species from the timber trees of ordi¬ 
nary parks. Still, however, this portion is plain English scenery, 
with only a slight trace of foreign character here and there. The 
arboretum, again, contains chiefly plants which are not natives ot 
England, though hardy enough to bear the cold of an English 
winter. Many of these trees are of stately dimensions ; and there 
was among them a cedar of uncommon majesty and grace, wdiich 
was unfortunately shattered by a hurricane in the early part ot 
the present year. On the margin of the arboretum there are tw'o 
conservatories ; — the one erected by Sir W illiam Chambers, and 
as ugly and ill-adapted to its purpose as can well be imagined; — 
the other, w'hich was erected by Vv illiam IA ., and designed by 
the late Sir Jeffrey Wyatville, is a simple heathen temple ; and 
although it has the advantage of a span roof, and light on -all 
