BOTANIC GARDENS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 31, 7 February 1928, Page 10

BOTANIC GARDENS.

IN NORTH AND SOUTH. i PR. A. W. HILL'S SUGGESTION j . ' ' 1 THE SCIENTIFIC REASONS. \ 1 . The gathering which welcomed Dr. A. ' W. Hill last night was obviously hoping that the director of the Royal Botanic | Gardens of Kew would express himself on 'the subect of the proposed botanic gardens for Auckland. J "I think it is most desirable," said Dr. Hill, accepting the invitation to refer to the subject, "that you should have a good representative collection of botany here because of the educational value that attaches to an. institution of the kind.*-Exactly where it should be established is a local matter, and not one in which I should interfere. I did, however, see a very nice place, this after- > noon in Cornwall Park, where it should be possible to develop good botanic : gardens." . Dr. Hill added that, unless a really i first-class man was obtained to lay out the gardens and determine the lines on i which they should develop, nothing much c could be expected. If they procured such a man and obtained a competent 1 curator they would be building on a t sure foundation. t "I will warn you on one point because I have heard mention of a 'national' botanic garden for Auckland. If you carry on with that idea you are not only likely to get into hot water with other centres in New Zealand but you will be taking a wrong course from a scientific point of view. It is impossible for you to grow here in the North some of the things that grow in the South, just as down there they cannot gro w some of the plants that you grow here." Dr. Hill suggested that if there was to be a national botanic garden it would be.best to divide it into two parts, one in the North and one in the South, with a qualified man to supervise the whole. By doing that they* would have something of which the whole Dominion might be proud and one which would deal with New Zealand flora as one great whole. *T do. not see," added Dr. Hill, "why you should not set up here a botanic garden and a system of research which should achieve the same useful results that Kew has managed to achieve in its day." Earlier in the afternoon Dr. Hill had been taken for a motor drive in order to. show him places which might be suitable for a botanic garden. The Party included the Mayor of Auckland. s Baildon, the town clerk, Mi". J. Professor A. P. W. Thomas. of

parks, and representatives of various, bodies interested in the proposal for a botanic garden in Auckland. The drive was from Kohimarama, past Lake St. John, through the gardens of the Ellerslie racecourse, to Cornwall Park and the Domain. Dr. Hill was impressed with the native plants and shrubs at Ellerslie, all neatly [labelled, and thought the garden the best of its kind he naa sedn in New Zealand. Of the various "sites, he thought the one near One, Tree Hill would be] most suitable for botanic gardens. j