PEOCEEDINGS, 



In the course of the evening Dr. A. T. Brett read a paper in 

 which he urged the members of the Society to take up the study of 

 vegetable mori:»hology, and particularly that part of it which 

 relates to the diseases to which plants are subject, and he showed 

 by examples of the losses sustained through want of knowledge, 

 how vitally important it was to the nation that plant-diseases 

 should be studied and the remedies for them made known. 



After coffee, etc., had been served, some beautifully-executed 

 original coloured drawings of the spores of leaf-fungi, lent by Mr. 

 George Massee, of Kew, were examined, and books treating of the 

 subject of the evening's study, including the finely-illustrated 

 Monographs of our British Insects issued by the Ray Society, were 

 looked into. 



About thirty members and friends were present. 



Oedinart Meeting, 13th Noveitbek, 1891, at Watford. 



Johj^ Hopkinson", Esq., F.L.S., F.G.S., etc., President, in the 

 Chair. 



Mr. George Barker, Kettlewells, St. Albans ; Mr. A. C. G. 

 Cameron, Geological Survey of England, Foster Hill Road, Bedford; 

 Mr. G. Mainwaring Robinson, Long Heath, Watford ; Mr. Percy 

 Hamilton Sainsbury, Huskards, Watford ; Miss Amy Catherine 

 Sell, Fairfield House, Watford; Mr. Arthur Smith, Hill End, 

 Smallfoi'd, St. Albans ; and Mr. Percy Jenner Weir, Lattimore 

 Road, St. Albans, were proposed for membership of the Society. 



The President said that most of the members present would 

 doubtless remember that at a meeting of the Society held at St. 

 Albans last December, the most important question affecting Hert- 

 fordshire which has lately arisen was brought forward, namely the 

 question of the water-supply of London. At that meeting a reso- 

 lution was passed requesting the Hertfordshire County Council to 

 take steps to oppose two bills then being prepared for presentation 

 to Parliament, which would, if they passed, very seriously affect 

 the interests of their county by a very much larger quantity of 

 water being abstracted from the catchment-basins of the Colne and 

 Lea for the supply of London than is even now being taken from 

 them. The bills were brought in and referred to a Select Com- 

 mittee ; their County Council, after considering the resolution of 

 their Society, officially presented to it, decided to oppose them ; and 

 the result of the opposition of the London and Hertfordshire County 

 Councils, and the London Water Companies, was that both bills 

 were thrown out. With regard to these bills, therefore, we had 

 nothing more to fear. Unfortunately, however, the matter was 

 still in abeyance. The London County Council was investigating 

 it, and there would very probably be some similar enquiry next 

 year. In the meantime the interests of this part of their county 

 were much more seriously affected by the steps which were being 

 taken by Mr. George Webster, of Harefield Grove, to abstract a 



