58 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 
of more than eighty years that has fallen upon him he would have been 
here with us to-night. 
I am quite sure, gentlemen, that you will allow me to express a word 
of thanks on behalf of the Society and of the Conference to the Horticul- 
tural Club for their sumptuous entertainment to-night. 
I find myself between two old friends, Sir John Llewelyn and the 
President of the Conference, and anyone who heard Mr. Bateson’s opening 
address this morning must have been struck with the exceedingly lucid 
manner in which he dealt with his most difficult subject. Science makes 
possible to-day what was impossible yesterday, and when the results of 
investigations are placed before us with such extreme lucidity Iam sure 
we are deeply grateful to him. Our Secretary gave me a paper some 
little while ago, which shows that anyone can become a member of 
the Royal Horticultural Society, the fee beimg one guinea. I have 
always said you could scarcely have a better investment for your money, 
because every guinea produces three guineas at the least! Mr. Wilks 
has drawn out a very careful statement, and from it he makes out that 
every subscriber of one guinea gets in return £6 14s. 
Well, I have got a little corroboration from an entirely independent 
source. I have the misfortune to be a Unionist, and, therefore, Iam in 
a pitiful minority. Isometimes speak to gentlemen in the opposite camp, 
and one of them is our present Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey. 
He said to me the other day, “I ama Fellow of your Society, because it 
is the only Society from which I ever get anything.” The present 
position of the Society has been referred to. Its financial position is 
eminently satisfactory. The Hall you have met in to-day is, on the whole, 
a very satisfactory building, and it is absolutely paid for. It has cost 
somewhere about £45,000. We have also a Garden which was given us 
by Sir Thomas Hanbury, to whom we are greatly indebted. It is exactly 
the sort of Garden we ought to have. 
Before Mr. Wilson died, greatly regretted by all horticulturists, the 
Garden, owing to his advancing years, had not been as carefully looked 
after as during his more active period. For our purposes it required a 
good deal of money spent upon it. We have spent that money, and we 
hope in the not remote future to establish there a scientific laboratory 
both for the training of students and also for undertaking independent 
research work. I think when that is accomplished, if we do not rival 
Rothamsted we may do—not the same, but similar—work of an equally 
useful kind. 
We still have an investment of £20,000 which is put on one side for 
the future. I do not know that there is much more I desire to say, 
and when I am speaking on this subject I am afraid of saying the same 
things over and over again. Our Fellows now number nearly 10,000, and 
Iam sometimes inclined to ask whether the time has not come for us to 
do what clubs have done and close our lists! I therefore venture to 
suggest that anybody who desires to become a Fellow of the Royal 
Horticultural Society should make haste, because in a short time it may 
become necessary to close the list from the impossibility of accom- 
modating more Fellows in our grand new Hall. As was said . years 
