A458 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENRTICS. 
great trouble or expense, I could soon bring the annuals into bloom in 
the open; while to do so with pelargoniums required at least a whole 
year’s cultivation in a frame. Therefore I entered on this task after 
much deliberation and careful consideration, in order not to waste too 
much time and money. However, it has required a far greater sacrifice — 
than I at first anticipated. 
During the first years the results were altogether insignificant, and it 
was only after fifteen years of the most arduous exertions that it was 
possible to exhibit the first collection which showed an entirely new 
strain, of which the distinguishing features at once arrested the attention 
of the beholders. 
These improvements have been retained in every way, so that my 
strain is now known all over the world, and wherever it is introduced all 
the old types are supplanted. 
In spite of this I work, year in, year out, unceasingly, for the perfect- 
ing of my pelargoniums, as I have not yet entirely gained the high 
standard of excellence which I have set before myself to aim at, and to 
which new ideals may constantly be added. 
I set myself the task of eliminating from these plants their worst 
faults : 
1. Their long straggling habit of growth. 
2. Their poor foliage. 
3. Their liability to aphis attack. 
But I am still striving to fix. in them further improvements, e.g. 
perpetual bloom during the whole summer, their utility as bedding-out 
plants, and tenacity of blooms. 
I perceived that my first and foremost task was to raise a compactly- 
growing plant, which my experience with other plants had shown was 
possible. Almost all plants grown from seed, sooner or later, acquire a 
low habit of growth ; thus we have dwarf forms of almost all annuals, 
e.g. dwarf stocks, dwarf asters, dwarf phloxes, dwarf balsams, &c., also 
dwarf peas, dwarf beans, &c. And we frequently meet with these dwarf 
forms amongst wild plants, particularly under trees. 
The dwarf forms are produced for the most part in elevated situations, 
but they also exist in the plains; and, as I have already said, they 
particularly frequently occur in the course of cultivation. 
I have often pondered over the problems of these developments, and 
the horticultural science of that time gave no evidence whatever as to 
how these dwarf forms could be arrived at with certainty. 
My observations indicated that the dwarf forms must have conditions 
of life which hindered them from arriving at a full development of their 
normal growth. 
Therefore the problem was to manufacture such conditions! At this 
time there came to my assistance an old gardening experience which is 
expressed in the well-known proverb: “ New seed, much growth ; old 
seed, much fruit,’’ and likewise in the world-wide remark, ‘‘ This tree has 
flowered itself to death.” 
The underlying meaning of both these sayings is identical, or, at all 
events, both rest on the same law of Nature, which I wish to express in 
the following terms : 
