BOTANIC GARDEN, a garden devoted to the promotion of botany, and in which plants are collected and cultivated in order to scientific study. The various economical applications of botany, however, in agriculture, manufactures, medicine, etc., are almost always kept particularly in view; and one great object of a B.G. is to bring to a country useful foreign plants, to determine the question of their suitableness to its climate, and to introduce those which may be cultivated with advantage. B. gardens are now deemed indispensable to universities; they arc reckoned among the public institutions of great cities, and even of nations, and are established in new colonies, not only for the sake of science, but as one of the means of promoting their prosperity. They are unknown to the ancients, although some of the secondary objects in which they are found most useful engage the attention of both Greeks and `Romans. The first approach to a B.G. appears to have been made about 1309 A.D., in the garden of 3latthaeus Syl vaticus, at Salerno; botanical science, however, being, merely subservient to medicine Of a similar character was the medical garden established at 'Venice, by the republic, in 1333. The example of Venice was followed by other Italian cities, and plants from different parts of the world began to be collected. At length, about contemporaneously with the revival of botanical science in modern times, the first true 13.G. was formed in 1533 at Padua, by Musa Brassavola, for Gaspar de Gabrieli, a wealthy Tuscan noble; which was soon followed by those of Pisa, Florence, Bologna, and Borne. The first public B.G. was that of Pisa. A public B.G. was established at Padua in 1545, by a decree of the republic of Venice, at the request of the professors and students of medi cine. The republic of Venice greatly encouraged the study of botany by sending- per sons to the Levant, to Egypt, and even to India, to procure plants for this garden.— The B.G. of Leyden was begun in 1577; it enjoyed in its infancy the care of Clusitis, and was brought to great perfection by Boerhaave, who was professor of botany there.— The first public B.G. in Germany was established by the elector of Saxony at Lcipsic in 1580. and was soon followed by others.—France had no B.G. till Louis :CHI. estab lished the jardin, des plantes at Paris, which was begun in 1610, but not completed till 1631—Nor was there any public B.G. in England till 1632, when that of Oxford was founded by the earl of banby. Private 13. gardens, however, had existed in England for the greater part of a century before.—The G.B. of Edinburgh, the first in Scotland, was founded about the year 1680, as a private 13.0., by Dr., afterwards Sir Andrew. Balfour, a zealous naturalist, who had inherited a collection of plants formed by a pupil of his own, Patrick 3Iurray, of Livingston, at his country-seat; and transferred them to Edinburgh; and the city of Edinburgh afterwards allotted to it a piece of ground, and allowed an annual sum for its support out of the revenues of the university.
The B.G. at Kew occupies a high place among British national institutions; it pos sesses one of the richest collection of plants in the world, and has been greatly improved tinder the care of sir William Jackson Hooker and his son. who succeeded him in 1865.
The Ilortus Kezeensis of Mr. Aiton. to whom the garden owed much of its prosperity in the 18th c., illustrates the greatness which it had even then attained. One of its chief glories is now its immense palm-house. finished in 1848, which is 862 ft. in length, and the central part of it 100 ft. wide and 66 ft. high.—A palm-house has, in like manner, greatly added to the attractions and value of the B.G. of Edinburgh. It is 100 ft. long by 60 ft. wide, and 701 ft. high. These houses permit something of stateliness and magnificence of the palms of the tropics to be seen in Britain.
Of B. gardens on the continent of Europe, the jardin des plantes may be regarded as holding the first place, both with reference to the strictly scientific study of botany. and to the care bestowed upon the introduction and diffusion of useful or beautiful plants from all parts of the World, There exists in Frante- what may. c.Alled a system of 13 gardens—one at least in every department—to which plants are sent from the jardin des planter, and from ga m which, as they continue to he multiplied by propation, they SOOD find way into the hands of nurserymen and private cultivators. The B.G. con nected tire imperial mperial palace at Schiinhrunn, in Austria, and that of Berlin, are the greatest in Germany. The former, which was begun in 17.53, by the emperor Frauds 1., was supplied with West India plants at enormous expense, the celebrated Jacquin being sent to procure them. The B.G. of New York is perhaps the most worthy of notice among the numerous bonanic ga•tkiis of America; and that of Calcutta deserves to be mentioned, as an important connecting-link between the B. gardens of Europe and the botany of India. It has enjoyed the care of a succession of eminent botanists, and has been very useful both in transmitting Indian plants to other parts of the world, and in introducing valuable productions of other countries into India.
In the laying out and arranging of 13. gardens. ditTerent methods are adopted, mere convenience and beauty being in some cases primarily regarded, and these in other cases being sacrificed to the supposed interests of science iu an attempted scientific arninge mem. A perfect adherence to a botanical system is, for obvious reasons, impossible; but a scientific arrangement of the plants in natural groups, in so far as it can be con veniently accomplished, greatly increases the usefulness of a 13.G., and facilitates the study of botany. Sometimes houses are devoted to particular orders of plants, as palms, heaths, or orchids; sometimes to plants of particular habits, as aquatic plants; and sometimes portions of the garden are advantageously devoted to the exhibition, at one view, of plants valuable for particular uses, as cereals or corn-plants, plants yielding fiber, etc.