400 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 
truss, its appearance at a casual glance is most unlike any Bowvardia 
known in cultivation. However successful one may be in one direction, 
failure is sure to follow the plant-breeder in another, or at least such is 
my experience. For many years past I have been repeatedly trying to 
obtain an improved yellow Bouvardia, but I have failed completely to 
bring about the fertility of B. flava or to impart its colour to any other. 
In concluding this paper I can only express an oft-occurring thought, 
how little we know by actual experiment in this vast field of research, 
as to where Nature is willing to open her rich storehouse to the hand of 
man, and where, on the other hand, she effectually defies any intrusions, 
simply because we are ignorant of her natural ways, and have in a 
certain sense to grope about until we find them. 
