70 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 
who stand out pre-eminent for their services in the advancement of 
scientific or practical horticulture. The first medal which I have to 
give to-night, if he will honour us by receiving it, is awarded to the 
President of our International Conference on Genetics, Mr. Bateson. It 
is most gratifying to all the members of the Royal Horticultural Society 
to greet this announcement with enthusiasm. It is impossible for 
any Conference to have had a better Chairman, and if it happens that the 
Society should ever hold another such Conference, we shall be exceedingly 
fortunate if we secure as good a President as Mr. Bateson has been. 
The next medal—and I may here remark that they are gold medals, 
and not silver-gilt—goes to Professor Johannsen, of Copenhagen, and is 
awarded, among other claims, for his discovery of the effect of ether in 
hastening the inflorescence of flowers. Professor Johannsen, by the 
paper he read at this Conference, has earned our admiration and thanks, 
and in regard to his scientific acumen and ability we here in England 
can stand in no doubt whatever. 
The next medal goes to Professor Wittmack, of Berlin. Professor 
Wittmack has for many years devoted the whole of his weighty learning 
to the study and the exposition of systematic and practical botany, and 
his services to horticulture are so many that unless the twenty-four 
hours of the day could be extended to thirty I could not enumerate them. 
-The next medal, and the last of this series, I have the honour to offer 
to Monsieur Maurice de Vilmorin. I do not suppose anybody who has 
the slightest interest in horticulture is unacquainted with the name of the 
eminent firm of which Monsieur de Vilmorin is a prominent member. I 
can bear personal testimony that it is a firm which for many, many years 
past has rendered most signal service to European, indeed to the whole 
world’s horticulture. 
It is so seldom that we have such an International Conference that I 
must ask leave to be allowed to present three further medals: One is to 
a lady, Miss E. R. Saunders, Lecturer on Botany at Newnham College, 
Cambridge. Miss Saunders has conducted the most intricate and difficult 
researches on the basis of Mendel’s laws—-researches demanding the 
utmost exercise of patience, coupled with the keenest observation. A 
silver-gilt ‘‘ Banksian’’ medal is awarded to her for the value and extent 
of her researches in the physiology of inheritance in plants. 
A similar medal to the last is awarded to Mr. R. H. Biffen, M.A., for 
his researches and discoveries in the heredity of cereals. Woraee on 
Mendel’s principles, Mr. Biffen has shown that new varieties of wheat 
may be produced combining in one the high quality of the best foreign 
wheats with the productiveness of our standard English varieties. He 
has also made a most important contribution to our knowledge of the 
inheritance of disease, by proving that certain common diseases in wheat 
are transmitted to the offspring in strict accordance with Mendel’s laws, 
so that they can be controlled, and in fact bred out; and in both these 
ways his work holds out the brightest hopes to farmers and landowners in 
these days of gloomy agricultural. prospects. 
The last medal is presented to Mr. C. C. Hurst for his researches into 
Mendel’s laws of inheritance. As is well known to all, Mr. Hurst has 
been for many years conducting these researches, beginning, I believe, 
