308 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 
the matter, and to ask—having regard to the fact that we do know enough 
to be able to speak confidently as to the possibility of raising .-hybrids— 
whether it would not be a proper subject to try and propose for the 
consideration of the various Governments that they should each help the 
interests of their country, and attempt on trees exactly what Dr. Erwin 
Smith has told us has already been done in the United States with regard 
to plants. 
I do not suppose that in our lifetime anything definite can be proved, 
but I cannot admit on that account that it should be out of the question 
as a scientific matter, that mankind should apply to trees the same laws 
that he has already applied to plants and cereals. We all know that in 
some countries forestry is in importance second only to that of 
agriculture. In the United States it is the fourth commercial interest of 
the country. You may say that this has no connection with hybridisa- 
tion, but I will appeal to M. de Vilmorin and others who have raised 
hybrid pines which have grown with extraordinary vigour, and whose 
timber already indicates a superiority over other forest species. My 
contention is, I think, a reasonable one, and I venture to express it in 
order to get information from those of you who know so much more than 
I do about the subject of hybridisation, and also for the purpose of 
bringing about, if possible, a combination of public establishments and 
combined experiments, such as no individual man could undertake 
properly even if he could expect to live a hundred years. 
I should like to mention, in passing, that a vast number of larches in 
this country are attacked by the Peziza Willkommii. I have directed 
experiments towards discovering what may be done to enable the trees to 
resist this extremely destructive fungus. It is a matter which should be 
taken in hand generally, as it appears to me to be a subject of the highest 
possible importance. 
Mr. W. Carruthers, F.R.S.: Like others at this Conference I wish 
to congratulate Dr. Erwin Smith, who is such a distinguished officer of 
the United States Government. I do not know that a more practical 
lesson could have been given us than the results that have been obtained 
at the instance of the United States Government and through the work 
that has been done by Dr. Smith and his colleagues. It seems to me 
that, notwithstanding our devotion to agriculture in this country, we are 
behind almost every other country in the world in our attainments on 
this subject, and I hope Dr. Smith has kindled a torch which will not soon 
go out, and that it may result in important work being done by our own 
Government for the benefit of all sorts of planters and cultivators. The 
President of the British Association hopes to get ten millions a year for 
scientific research. I am quite sure this Society could very profitably 
employ perhaps one-fifth or even one-tenth of that amount in carrying 
out investigations of this kind. When one sees what has already been 
done, and what are the practical results of these investigations, one cannot 
but wonder at our own Government’s comparative inaction. When Dr. 
Smith was speaking about cotton, I remember when in this country we. 
suffered serious injury from clover-sick land just as these fields in America 
were cotton-sick fields. That was caused by the fungus Sclerotinia, which 
does much mischief. Happily this Sclerotinia confines itself almost 
