Royal Gardens,
Kew.
Jan 5. 184 89
My dear Sir
Thank you for your name to the Rhododendron book. <1> It will be very beautiful & very interesting & I am very anxious the Publisher should not be a loser. I lose 3 gs on every plate, but the Publisher cannot afford to do so & I hope his expences will be covered.
I have had many applications from distinguished persons, even from the Queen Dowager, <2> about a subsidiary Garden, for what they call “acclimatizing” plants & all seemed to point to Madeira<.> With no faith on the subject of acclimatization, I can yet see enough of advantage to induce me to wish very much for such a thing. The only objection is the expense. In these days of the most rigid śconomy nothing can be expected from Government except perhaps in a Colony of our own: & thence I should say your suggestion of Corfu <3> is a good one. Gibraltar would perhaps be better if not too rocky. But in either case the Governor should set the thing agoing (as Sir Harry Smith <4> has now done at the Cape) & then I believe the home Govt would be willing to aid. Of course to so laudable a measure our Kew Garden would give most liberally of all useful plants to so national & useful an undertaking. The Cape for the object you have in view is too far off but Gibraltar or Corfu, readily accessible by fortnightly steamers, & on the high road to India would be a capital spots. There should be constant communication with it & them to make it really useful.
truly Yours,
W. J. Hooker.
Notes:
1. Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911) and William Jackson Hooker, The rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya . . . (London: Reeve, Benham and Reeve, 1849).
2. Queen Adelaide (1792–1849), widow of King William IV.
3. Corfu was a British protectorate between 1815 and 1864.
4. Harry George Wakelyn Smith (1787–1860), bt, governor of the Cape of Good Hope.