Number nineteen is called the Cactus House;
here the family of Cactus dwell. You will
remark specially the echino-cactus—rugged
and prickly. A variety of cactus is the
prickly pear , which the Eastern traveller sees
on the sides of lanes as he rides along in the
afternoon. The Opuntia cochinillifera is an
important commercial branch of the house.
It is cultivated in immense quantities in
Mexico, to feed the cochineal insect—a most
important crimson and scarlet dye.

But the visitor has much to see in the open
air. There is the Turkey oak, which I
mentioned before. There are cedars, maples,
hickory trees, a weeping willow, from
Napoleon's tomb, and a sad young cypress from
Mexico. In the circular beds he will see
crimson flowers gleaming here and there. I
have before mentioned the young deodars, or
sacred cedars, which will, by-and-by, form a
long and shady vista.

The Museum contains, in glass cases, the
products of plants in another aspect—their
relation to the arts, medicine, and domestic
economy. There are all manner of hemps,
flax, cloth, rice paper, and palms, as used by
the inhabitants of all parts of the globe.
There are also drawings, illustrative of
interesting and useful plants, many of which, we
may here state, were sent from the Himalays,
by Dr. Hooker, brother of the Director.
There are also some elegant wax models of
flowers, the gifts of ladies.—The museum is
still, however, in its infancy; but it is an
infancy that promises much. It is certainly
highly curious to see there, duly labelled in
little bottles, rare specimens of so many
articles of the food of the human race.
Everybody must feel some curiosity, too, to see the
implements used for the preparation of opium,
which are all to be seen there, with drawings
descriptive of the process. And the visitor
who prefers strolling in the open air will see,
as he wanders near the fence of the fields
adjoining the old Palace, an interesting
scientific monument—a sun-dial, erected to
commemorate Dr. Bradley's discoveries in
astronomy, made at the old Observatory of Kew.

Kew Gardens were first formed by that
Prince Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of
George the Second, and father of George the
Third, whose singular quarrels with his father,
and deadly enmity to his mother, occupy so
large a space of the discreditable memoirs of
last century. His father scarcely ever spoke
of him, but as "a scoundrel" or "a puppy;"
he has been abused by Sporus Hervey and
Half-Sporus Walpole, and he was a friend of
Bubb Doddington—but he does seem to have
liked art and gardening in his way. He
took a lease of Kew House, and began laying
out the grounds and planting trees and
exotics. In fact, it was while walking in the
gardens that he caught the cold which caused
his death in 1751 (just a century before our
visit). His widow subsequently interested
herself in them; and the exotic department
was much favoured by Lord Bute. In 1789
George the Third built the Palace: the
Gardens were greatly patronised by  Queen
Charlotte, aided by Sir Joseph Banks (whose
memory lives in the Banksians), and in 1840
they were relinquished by the Queen to the
Commissioners of Woods and Forests. It is
a fact, with regard to their being open to the
public, that while they have been much visited
by all classes, no mischief or misconduct has
taken place there—which refutes the vulgar
calumny that "the people" spoil things.

Everything about the Gardens bears
testimony to careful management and excellent
organisation. The brooding heat which keeps
life in the veins of the children of the tropics
is supplied by dozens of little subterranean
pipes, or flues, and fills the places with an
equal atmosphere. The due moisture fattens
the leaves ever in due time; there are no
dead leaves, no decayed blossoms lying about.
The gay flower, romantic enough in appearance
for the garden of Shelley's "Sensitive
Plant," is tended and ordered with the
precision of mechanism. Beauty is neither
sacrificed to organisation, nor injured by neglect.
The sweet plant, watched like a prisoner, has
the free-blooming look of a Queen. The tree
growing near you so sturdily has come
hundreds of miles, most likely in a ship when
young, addressed, "Secretary of the Admiralty,
London: for Sir W. J. Hooker,Royal Gardens,
Kew." In fact, the gardens are a sort of
bank to which botanical currency flows for
transmission. Is something curious or valuable
discovered anywhere? Seeds and specimens
reach Kew—from thence other great European
collections—and so a product of one side of
the globe may, through this organisation, be
cultivated by us, in the corresponding climate
of any of our colonial possessions. It is thus
highly valuable to science and to the general
prosperity of our race.

But something must be said, too, in favour
of the high good done, in another way, by the
contemplation of Beauty, and the moral good
resulting to the many from such institutions.
This is a sort of "fruit" that our "climate"
will permit to grow in the open air; and
everywhere else, it is to be hoped! I was
thinking, as I left the gardens, what a swarm
of beautiful blossoms, one might inspect there
this summer; and only regretted that I didn't
happen to be one of those who

"Saw the water-lily bloom"

in its form of Victoria Regia in a way that
would have charmed the "Lady of Shalott!

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