FINAL SESSION 



(Held in the Museum Buililiiii; of lite A't'if Botanical Cardcii.) 



A session of the conference on October '1 was held in the niuienni of the 

 New York Botanical Garden, l)y invitation of the board of managers. The 

 members of the conference were entertained to luncli. President Wood 

 called the conference to order at 2 p. m. 



The Chair; I desire to take this opportunity to express, on l)ehalf of 

 the Horticnitural Society of New York and on l)ehalf of this conference, the 

 appreciation we have of the attendance at this conference of those gentlemen 

 who have come to it from abroad, those who have come from across the 

 water, the other side of the Atlantic, and those who have come to us from the 

 West Indies, and also our brethren irom Canada. We do not speak of the 

 Canadians exactly as foreigners; while we recognize their attachment to their 

 country and then- intense loyalty to their sovereig;n, we always look upon 

 them as Americans an.d as brothers with whom we prasp hands most lovingly. 

 But the attendance of these gentlemen from across the Atlantic and from the 

 West Indies has emphasized the fact that there are no national lines in 

 science, that we are working together for the same object, and there are 

 none in the world more truly brethren than those who are united in the 

 bonds of scientific investigation. These gentlemen, coming to us as they have, 

 have added very greatly to both the pleasure and the importance of this 

 conference. They have given us very valuable contributions, and I am sure 

 we all feel that there could not possibly have been a more admirable opening 

 of the sessions of the conference than that which Professor Bateson gave 

 in his admirable address on Tuesday morning. I simply wish in this informal 

 way to express our appreciation of the attendance of these gentlemen, and de- 

 sire on behalf of all of us to give them our thanks for not only their attend- 

 ance, but their very valuable contributions to the work of the conference. 



W. Bateson : I should like on behalf of those who have bad the 

 honor of taking part in this conference at the invitation of the Horticultural 

 Society of New York to express in some imperfect way our thanks and our 

 appreciation of the trouble they have taken in getting us together. I came 

 with high hopes of what I was going to hear, of the enjoyment that I knew 

 this conference must be to me, but I must say this very far surpasses the 

 very high hopes that I had formed. To have been in contact for these few 

 days with the number of persons we have met here who are so keenly inter- 

 ested in this business of plant breeding and the detection of the fundamental 

 truths in the life of plants, has been more stimulating and inciting to my mind 

 than I can describe. I knew that very great work was going on in America, 

 but what is going on is far greater than I had any knowledge of. I have met 

 some of the gentlemen from Washington, and I hope in the course of the 

 next week to see something of the work that they are doing there ; but I can 



