property, on the understanding that they were to be freely admitted to its amenities. From such extinction Kew was rescued in 1840 by the report of a parliamentary committee, upon which steps were taken and funds provided for bringing the Gardens to their present position at once as a popular resort and as a national scientific collection, while still they remained nominally a royal demesne. Aiton being pensioned off, Sir W. J. Hooker, formerly Botanical Professor at Glasgow, was appointed Director. Here appears another case of heredity, for Hooker was the son of a botanist, and came to be replaced by his own son. [Illustration: THE PEONIES] Under his management the Gardens grew apace, the botanic part being much enlarged, while the Museums of Economic Botany were now set on foot. Decimus Burton, the fashionable architect of his day, was called in to design new buildings like the Palm House, unrivalled in England unless by Paxton’s Great Conservatory at Chatworth, which was the model of the Crystal Palace. To make room for such useful structures, a sweep had to be made of many of the fanciful “temples” and other gimcrackeries of the Georgian age, specimens of which are still dotted about the grounds, now laid out on a principle of compromise with formality, “the aim being to weave the various collections of trees and shrubs into a whole, which should avoid an artificial and yet yield an agreeable effect, while still subserving a definite purpose.” In 1865, Sir W. J. Hooker was succeeded by Sir J. D. Hooker, who in his younger days had made adventurous journeys to the Himalayas and elsewhere in the interest of botanical science. He still lives at a good old age, after twenty years’ service having given place to his son-in-law, Sir W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, who also has gone on the _emeritus_ list; and the present head is Colonel Prain, whose experience in India should give a new strain of efficiency. Sir Joseph Hooker’s management was marked by a vehement quarrel between him and his official superior, Mr. Ayrton, head of the Board of Works, a Kew man by birth, who perhaps for that reason felt himself the more moved to aggressive interference. The scientific world warmly took up the cause of its _confrère_; and Ayrton earned general unpopularity by his overbearing tone; but Sir Algernon West, then Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Gladstone, after having had a good deal of trouble over arranging the dispute, gives us his opinion that there were faults on both sides.