REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENELIUS 83 
May such be the new race which time and hybridisation shall produce 
for the world! ‘Then, indeed, the “sports” of Conferences will not have 
been in vain, and for a day in this his rus in urbe we, and especially 
we of the Royal Horticultural Society and our foreign friends—with all 
whose many nations. we Britons wish a fair and frank friendship for 
ever—are grateful to Mr. Leopold de Rothschild, whose absence we 
regret, while we appreciate Mr. Lionel’s reception of us on his ‘father’s 
behalf; and, in the poverty of my own language to express fully my own 
“See and the feelings of all of us, I ae from the wealth of our 
greatest poet—who is the poet of all civilised and cultured nations—to 
teach me to say all in a single verse: 
We can no other answer make but Thanks, 
And Thanks, and ever Thanks. 
Mr. Lionel de Rothschild, in replying, said :—I thank you, Dr. Erwin 
Smith, and you, Sir Albert Rollit, for your kind speeches, and you, ladies 
and gentlemen, for the way in which you haye received the toast of the 
health of my- father and mother. My father is, as you know, quite 
unavoidably absent in Switzerland, but he asked me to tell you how 
sorry he is at not being here, and how pleased he would haye been to 
have been able himself to welcome you and to show you the gardens, 
which he will be very glad to hear you have all enjoyed so much. 
* * 
he * * a 
In the other room the guests had speeches to themselves. 
Professor Johannsen, of Copenhagen, said he expressed the feelings 
of all present when he thanked their host most heartily for the princely 
hospitality shown to them that day ; indeed during the whole week they 
had had no feeling in their hearts but those of gratitude and pleasure. 
He then called upon those present to empty their glasses to the health of 
Mr. Leopold de Rothschild and his family. 
Professor E. N. Hansen, of the United States, said :—Here, amidst 
these beautiful grounds, a masterpiece of the landscape gardener’s art, we 
may say that the flower of hospitality is again in full bloom to-day. 
Landscape gardening is one of the fine arts: it is our soul’s ideal of 
beauty expressed in terms of trees, shrubs, and flowers. In like manner 
we may say that true hospitality, as shown to us this week in so many 
ways, is brotherly affection in full bloom. The representatives of the 
civilised nations of the world have gathered together to compare notes 
on their efforts to make. the world better by making the plants better, 
and with better plants we help to make firmer the foundations of a 
civilisation ever growing more complex. We feel, then, that we are 
doing a grand work for the advancement of mankind; and it is truly 
refreshing to us, as a body of faithful workers, to find such cordial 
welcome and appreciation as we haye done all this week. Mr. Leopold 
de Rothschild, in honouring this Conference with such magnificent hospi- 
tality, shows that he, in the midst of a busy life, finds time to realise 
that our work deals with things fundamental, and that he himself is a 
true lover of the “ Art that doth mend Nature.” We thank our host, and 
in drinking to his health we hope that he, with his family, may live 
many years to enjoy this beautiful home and garden, 
