REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 75 
which mark out the work to be done by this or that person or nation. I 
believe that the development of differences is the true basis of unity, and 
that we shall arrive at complete unity, as we have already arrived at partial 
unity, by each going his own way. We talk of nations, but we here are all 
men and women of science, and science is cosmopolitan. Science bursts 
the narrow bounds of nations and tongues ; it knows that what is for the 
good of all is for the good of each. It wants no formal regulations, 
treaties, tribunals of the Hague. We have Nature, that is to say Truth, 
as our great and our only arbiter ; and she leads us, and is leading us, to 
that unity—the greatest unity—which in the good times to come shall 
embrace the whole world. I speak on behalf of the British delegates, and 
I use the expression “ British’ in no narrow sense. I do not confine it to 
England, to that country whose fickle climate makes gardening, as it were, 
a pious occupation, for it is said that when the gods see good men and 
women struggling against adversity their hearts are delighted; and that 
is what English gardeners are always doing. I include Scotland where, 
if they get better results, it must be because they use greater skill. I 
include Ireland where the blooms burst forth with Celtic expansiveness. 
I include Wales, but it is never necessary to welcome Wales, because 
(turning to Sir John Llewelyn) Wales is always to the front. I include 
modest Canada. Their native flowers riot in the freedom of Nature. I 
include Australia, 1 include the Cape, I include our great tropical and 
colonial possessions, so rich in great beauty and practical results. On 
behalf of all these I thank you for the toast which you have so cordially 
drunk. 
THe BoarD oF AGRICULTURE, HorTICULTURE, AND FISHERIES. 
Mr. W. Bateson, F.R.S., V.M.H. (President of the Conference), then 
rose to propose the toast of “The Board of Agriculture, Horticulture, and 
Fisheries.” He said:—Sir Trevor Lawrence, my Lords, Ladies, and 
Gentlemen,—I have to propose a toast, but before doing that I must 
speak something of the thankfulness and the pride in my heart to-night. 
I have received at your hands, Sir Trevor, an honour which is to me 
quite overwhelming and utterly unexpected, to which I feel I have truly 
no right whatever. This is an honour given to those who have done 
benefit to horticulture. I cannot think that, in any way, what little we 
have done in Cambridge has yet benefited horticulture. In the future 
we hope to do so; but at present there is nothing, nothing I fear, which 
we can claim as having as yet been of benefit to horticulture. And then 
as to the grounds for our hopes for the future—what are they? How 
many of them have been annihilated in the past! Had it not been for 
the work that has been done by my friends and pupils—first of all by my 
colleague, Miss Saunders, whose name has been so deservedly honoured 
to-night—there would have been nothing at all to justify me in speaking 
of the significance of the work of inheritance ; but for that vast reservoir 
of work they have piled together, I could never have dared, without 
that force behind me, to have asserted that Mendelian research has been 
‘and is of the importance that we now know it must possess. 
I am here to propose the toast of “The Board of Agriculture, Horti- 
culture, and Fisheries,” and to couple it with the name of Sir Thomas 
