The number of visitors to the Royal Gardens during the past year exhibits a considerable increase over any previously reported. It is nearly 26,000 in excess of the attendance in 1874, the highest previously recorded, and 37,450 in excess of the attendance of the previous year, 1877. As in preceding years, the bank holiday in August brought the greatest crowd, though the number, 57,121, was slightly less than that, in 1877, not-withstanding that the Gardens were opened three hours earlier in the day.

In accordance with the decision of the Board, to which I willingly assented (Kew Report for 1877, p. 10), the Gardens have been thrown open to the public at 10 a.m. on the four bank holidays. Considering the persistence and energy with which the movement for a daily early opening was pressed, I confess I am surprised at the small success, from that point of view, which has attended the experiment. I am confirmed in my belief that the demand does not really correspond to any widely-felt public want, and that the present ordinary hour of opening is entirely adequate to the convenience and needs of metropolitan visitors, while I am more than ever convinced that the early opening would be highly prejudicial to the unique character of the Royal Gardens as a place of public resort.

It must never be lost sight of that Kew is a highly-kept garden, with all the beauty and amenity of a private establishment, and not an ordinary park for open-air recreation. On April 22 the total number of visitors from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. was 46,201, the number in the preceding year from 1 to 7 p.m. being 29,296. But the numbers before 1 o'clock are only in the proportion of 1 out of 15 of the total number of visitors.

On June 10 the proportion of early visitors (6,703) to the total (56,715) is rather greater, while on August 5, when the number of early visitors was 3,997, it again bears about the same ratio of 1 to 15. On December 26 the entire number of visitors throughout the day was only 119.

The lessons given to the young gardeners in the evening, about twice a week throughout the year, and upon which the attendance is voluntary, continue to give satisfactory results. The subjects of the lectures are elementary meteorology, physics, and chemistry during the winter months, and structural, systematic, geographical, and economic botany during the summer. The importance of this instruction in page 6 fitting the young men for public appointments in the colonies and elsewhere, which we are so constantly asked to fill up from Kew, cannot be over estimated.