90 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS 
THE CONFERENCE. 
WHEN the Conference assembled on the first morning, Sir Trevor 
Lawrence, Bart., K.C.V.O., V.M.H., President of the Royal Horticultural 
Society, again welcomed the delegates. He said:—Gentlemen, it is 
scarcely necessary for me to make any remarks by way of introducing 
to you your President of the Conference. We all know him to be an 
eminent man of science, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a distinguished 
member of the University of Cambridge. He from the very first made 
a study into the laws of natural inheritance his peculiar province, and in 
response to an invitation from our Society he has kindly undertaken to 
preside over this Conference, and has, I understand, prepared an opening 
address to which we are all now looking forward with the greatest possible 
anticipation. 5; 
Mr. Bateson: I am exceedingly sorry to have to announce that Dr. 
Camus, Laureate of the Institute of France, whom we had hoped to have 
present with us in person, is not able to attend our meetings; but I am 
clad to be able to add that he has kindly sent his paper for our considera- 
tion. Dr. Camus has also sent besides his paper a very complete and- 
voluminous list of European natural hybrids ; but so complete is it, and so 
voluminous, that I fear that even this great Society will not feel able to 
undertake the expense of printing it. It will, however, be here for reference, 
and it is most kind of Dr. Camus to have sent it. 
One other preliminary remark I wish to make. It will have been 
noticed by many that unhappily our date coincides with that of the 
British Association. The proceedings of the British Association are 
taking place at York this and next week, and that, of course, is most 
unfortunate. Our date was chosen long before theirs was fixed, but they 
had to accept the date assigned to them by the city they were invited to 
visit. However, the goodly gathering we had last night and have again 
to-day shows, I hope, that our proceedings will not be seriously affected 
even by such mighty competition as that of the British Association. 
THE PROGRESS OF GENETIC RESEARCH. 
An INAUGURAL ADDRESS TO THE THIRD CONFERENCE ON 
HYBRIDISATION AND PLANT-BREEDING. 
By W. Barzson, M.A., F.R.S., V.M.H. 
Ir is just seven years since, on the hottest day of a very hot summer, the 
first Conference devoted to Hybridisation and Plant-breeding assembled 
at Chiswick. Looking back on that occasion we realise what some of us 
even then suspected, that we were concerned in a remarkable enterprise. 
No such conference had taken place before, and our proceedings were of 
the nature of experiment. That definite results might come from that 
