THE PLEA OF THE PLANTS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 86, 8 October 1935, Page 8

THE PLEA OF THE PLANTS

Asked by a member of the City Council Avhether tlie Botanical Gardens were not one of the finest of their kind, Mr. Fox, horticulturist, and a spokesman of the Wellington Beautifying Society, replied affirmatively. Mr. Fox, with other representatives of the society, Mrs. Knox

Gilmer and Captain S. S. Holm, was pleading for a glasshouse (alias winter garden) 80 feet by 40 feet; he mentioned the sum of £400 as annual upkeep, and another .speaker suggested that £3000 was needed for capital cost. Nature spots, like the Botanical Gardens and Otari Plant Museum, have their purpose; and big glasshouses, representing a compromise with Nature, also have their purpose. These purposes are distinct and not competitive, but may become competitive when money has to be found from the same . municipal funds, for each.and all. No beautylovor can fail to sympathise.with the object: of the deputation,. nor yet with wild Nature when she works in. the open, assisted by such human labour as the finances permit, It is to be regretted that beautiful plant life, seeing that it performs a very real human service, cannot develop a stronger- finance [ of its own, not altogether dependent on the rates. The alternative suggested by. Councillor Luckie is private beneficence. The plea which plant-life wakes for the charily of thecharitable is so eloquent that one ,feels powerless to add .to it by. mere words..