SECOND ANNUAL BANQUET. 49 
many of you know, it is not by any means common but I 
would rather say very rare, to find a thoroughly equipped 
scientific man, a man with thorough scientific knowledge, 
able to uphold his own in the scientific world, and at the 
same time to have that systematic business capacity that 
enables him to carry out successfully a great work such 
as you Trustees, gentlemen, have upon your hands. I feel 
that, with Professor Trelease as your executive officer, you 
have every prospect of great success in the future. 
And now I will only say in conclusion that I appear 
here not merely in my personal capacity. If it had been a 
mere personal matter I might not have felt that I had a 
right to come before you and say what I am going to say ; 
but as one who did a great deal of botanical work in the 
old world in connection with the Edinburgh University, and 
the Botanical Garden there, and in later years in the Cana- 
dian provinces both in Nova Scotia and Ontario. I feel that 
from my connection with many of the botanists of Canada 
who have done useful work of late years I may safely 
venture to express not only my own thanks but their 
gratitude to you gentlemen for carrying out the pur- 
poses of Mr. Shaw in such a thoroughly public-spirited 
manner and in inviting even from far away Nova Scotia as 
one of your guests an inhabitant of a remote province to 
come and see how the work is being done. That is an 
earnest to me of the future: — that these annual meetings 
themselves, which Mr. Shaw looked forward to, may be 
made the center, may be made the rallying point, that St. 
Louis may be made the rallying point as it were for the 
botanists not only of the American continent but of the 
rest of the world. And I feel sure that wherever your 
annual report goes, wherever a real knowledge of the Shaw 
Botanical Garden and the Shaw School of Botany and the 
work that has been done here shall penetrate, you have the 
hearty thanks and can demand at any time the hearty co- 
operation of every botanist of Europe and America. 
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