AmAJp°rnr;£o6arm'}  London  Botanic  Gardens.  177 
The  administrative  and  material  details  may  conveniently  be  consid- 
ered first,  and  we  shall  accordingly  begin  with  these  ;  a  resume  of 
the  botanical  work  accomplished  in  connection  with  the  garden  will 
then  be  given ;  and  the  whole  account  will  be  concluded  by  a  gen- 
eral  description  of  the  garden  under  the  present  administration. 
The  ground  now  occupied  by  the  Chelsea  Physic  Garden  was 
originally  leased  from  Charles  Cheyne  by  the  Society  of  Apothe- 
caries in  1673  for  a  term  of  sixty-one  years.  The  immediate  object 
which  the  Society's  members  had  in  view  in  taking  this  lease  was 
the  acquisition  of  a  suitable  spot  near  the  river  for  the  erection  of  a 
barge-house,  as  it  was  customary  for  the  City  companies  at  that  time 
to  possess  a  state  barge  for  participation  in  the  Lord  Mayor's  show 
and  similar  functions.  The  plot  of  ground  thus  acquired  was  nearly 
four  acres  in  extent,  so  that  a  part  of  it  was  utilized  by  the  proprie- 
tors of  the  Laboratory  Stock  for  growing  medicinal  herbs,  and  plants 
were  transferred  to  it  from  the  Society's  garden  at  Westminster.1  A 
wall  was  built  around  the  Chelsea  Garden  in  1674  at  the  expense  of 
fourteen  of  the  Society's  members,  on  the  understanding  that  the 
Court  of  Assistants  would  contribute  £2  every  year  forever  to  each 
of  the  six  herborizings.  A  sum  of  .£50  was  also  contributed  towards 
the  cost  of  this  wall  by  the  proprietors  of  the  Laboratory  Stock  in 
return  for  the  privilege  given  to  them  of  growing  herbs  for  their 
own  use  in  the  garden.  A  gardener  must  have  been  employed  very 
soon  after  the  garden  was  established,  for  it  is  recorded  that  a  man 
named  Piggott,  who  had  served  in  that  capacity,  was  dismissed  in 
1677.  Richard  Pratt  was  chosen  in  his  stead,  and  a  lodging  was 
provided  for  him  in  addition  to  his  salary.  In  1679  the  first  com- 
mittee of  management,  consisting  of  the  extraordinary  number  of 
seventy-one  persons,  was  appointed,  and,  in  1680,  John  Watts,  a 
member  of  the  Society,  and  one  of  the  fourteen  contributors  to  the 
cost  of  the  wall,  was  elected  gardener,  with  "  the  allowance  of  one 
or  two  laborers  "  besides  his  salary.  A  "  stove  "  was  erected  in  the 
following  year  in  the  lower  part  of  the  garden,  near  the  river,  and, 
in  1683,  four  young  cedars  of  Lebanon,  the  first  grown  in  this  coun- 
1Iyittle  is  known  of  this  garden,  but  it  is  evident,  from  an  entry  in  Evelyn's 
Diary,  that  a  Physic  Garden  was  in  existence  at  Westminster  in  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  It  is  also  evident  that  the  Society  subsequently 
became  connected  with  it  in  some  way,  for  an  arrangement  was  made  in  1676 
for  removing  the  plants  from  thence  to  the  Chelsea  Garden. 
