72 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS, 
Professor Noorduijn, of Groningen, Holland, speaking in Dutch, said :— 
I rise with the permission of the President to say a few words. Sir 
Trevor Lawrence, my Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—Everyone in Holland 
speaks with great sympathy of Queen Kmma, who, on account of what 
she did for our dearly beloved Queen Wilhelmina, and because of the 
great. interest she continues to show in everything partaking of national 
concern, implanted in all Dutch hearts a feeling of lasting love and 
gratitude. Sir Trevor Lawrence, in the name of our Dutch people I 
thank you most heartily for your sympathetic words, and you all, ladies 
and gentlemen, as the scientific delegates of so many different nationalities, 
for your sympathy. Long live the Queen-Mother of the Netherlands ! 
Professor N. E. Hansen :—Mr. President, my Lords, Ladies, and Gentle- 
men,—On behalf of the United States Department of Agriculture and my 
brethren across the seas, I thank you for this most cordial greeting, and 
for the opportunity we have had of learning some of the latest and best 
things in the development of plant life. What does this Conference mean ? 
It means that the development of plants is going to be an exact science. 
What was formerly a chaos of empiricism is now becoming one of the 
exact sciences due to the recent discoveries in heredity. No longer is 
heredity a jungle. Owing to the discovery of Mendel’s law, a clear path 
has been blazed through the jungle of heredity. New and valuable forms 
of plants may spring, like Minerva, full-fledged from the head of Jupiter, 
and we now go forward in hope that in the next twenty years we shall have 
many new varieties of flowers and of plants of great economic value. 
The policy of the present U.S.A. Department of Agriculture is to 
search the world for some new plant life better adapted to the various 
parts of the United States from Alaska to Southern Florida. I was the 
first agricultural explorer who was sent out on behalf of our department 
in 1898-99 to Russia, Transcaucasia, Turkestan, China, and Siberia, 
and I am now again on my way to Russia, intending to pass through 
Siberia and Japan. Since 1897 fourteen or fifteen other explorers have 
been sent out to various parts of the world. We are searching the world 
over for new plants, and we are also making new plants at home; we 
are determined to find, or to develop, new plants that will endure under 
all conditions. This means, further, that we intend to have plants that 
will be completely immune to the many diseases of plant life. And so it 
goes on. If I had more time I could tell you something of the perils 
and dangers which agricultural explorers undergo in a two thousand 
miles’ journey by waggon and sleigh in Turkestan, China, and Western 
Siberia, but there is hardly time to do that now. Suffice it to say that 
the world is being searched by the United States for forms of plant life 
that are better adapted to our manifold conditions, which are so very 
varied. As fast as this material is secured we resort to crossing and 
selection, and thus carry the improvement still further. 
[During the delivery of the Professor’s speech one of the heaviest 
thunderstorms within living memory raged, almost drowning all sound 
but its own.] 
Dr. Tschermak responded in German. He expressed on behalf of the 
German and Austrian delegates their deep gratitude for the cordial 
