October [18]/85
Cragside,
Rothbury.
My dear Dyer*1
I have been meditating upon the best method of putting the supreme[?] administration of the Establishment to which we are both devoted upon a better footing.
The following matters oppress me.
I I ought not longer to delay informing the Board that it expends £300 p.a. on a Curator one moiety of whose duties (that of supervising cultivation) is performed by others, & of the other moiety a half is executed by clerks.
II I am not at ease in respect of the performance of my own duties. You have releived[sic] me of all administration of the Garden, have undertaken the Curator's duties of cultivation &c, have kept up & enormously increased the Indian, Foreign, Colonial & Home correspondence, extended the Museum & conducted endless petty & often vexatious jobs; leaving me the Arboretum in the hopes that I should

further find time to proceed with the Indian Flora.
You have fulfilled your part in this arrangement to my immense relief & to the great advantage of the Establishment in every way. -- but my part has been a failure & to me a very distressing one. The Arboretum or the Flora are either of them sufficient work for me, & they are incompatible.
III Of the two the Arboretum is clearly my first duty, but I can do nothing there without such aid as Smith*2 once was to me, or as Nicholson could be were his services wholly at my disposal. As it is, for reasons with which you are familiar, I cannot command Nicholson's services, & the Arboretum suffers.
Now whereas it would be possible so to arrange without me that the Arboretum should be well served, I see no prospect of the Indian Flora being completed without me. Except your own, [William Philip] Hiern's & Clark's contributions to it, I am profoundly dissatisfied with all others & so I think are Indian Botanists.
IV It is full time to introduce into the supreme administration of Kew an Officer who should relieve you of many or all of the petty duties of administration, & who should be, or be in training to be, Assistant Director under you.
This all points to my retirement as the solution of the difficulties & my devoting myself to the Flora Indica & the unofficial supervision over of publications at the Herbarium. This I earnestly desire, I do think I could there be most usefully employed & be at the same time of use to the Herbarium.
My retirement, & the suppression of the Curatorship would leave the way open for you to start afresh with a staff organized as you think best, & in the formation of which you would have my best aid & wishes -- My idea still is that you should have a Bailiff at £150, with charge of Stoves[?] & labor[sic] & supervision under you of the whole Establishment as Smith now has. -- That Watson should be Chief [1 word illeg.] with the Temperate House added to his present charge. -- That

Nicholson should have the charge of the Nomenclature throughout the Establishment. Binder might I think be suppressed, but you will want Truelove to play Garrett's[?] part in the Arboretum.
By this arrangement you would free two houses, & curtail expenditure. Binder's house might go to Nicholson, & the Directors be converted into Offices, the Director receiving an allowance for a house. Dewar would have the present Office for a house.
For my part I earnestly desire to retire -- I can afford it -- I am in my 69th year & the 21st of Directorship -- I am getting deaf & stiff, & no longer fit for active Garden duties, but not too old for much work in the Herbarium & supervising publications there (sorely needed). I should get rid of the expense of the Kew House, & live at Sunningdale*5. Coming 3 days or more a weekly to Kew -- Finally retirement before I am too old to enjoy the grass or perhaps even to cross my paddock, would be an inexpressible relief. I have nothing to gain by staying on, you & the Board ought to be all the better off by my retirement.
Ever aff[ectionatel]y y[our]s | J. D. Hooker[signature]