THE BANQUET. AT 
proud to say was borne by a man who in his day for thirty-five years was 
the life and soul of the Royal Horticultural Society. I am not old 
enough to recollect the creation of the Society, for it was started in 1804 ; 
but I am old enough to recollect those days which were the glorious, 
prosperous days of the Society—the days of the great Chiswick fétes in 
May, June, and July, when all the rank and fashion of London and the 
country went down to enjoy those great fétes. They developed in my 
own time from that iron skeleton of a tent which used to stand in the 
arboretum of the Society till they culminated in those wonderful shows at 
Chiswick, and later on at Kensington. These were days when the Horticul- 
tural Society’s exertions took the form of sending out explorers and col- 
lectors all over the globe, and the work they did was astonishing to those 
who are aware of their results. Irecollectsome of them. There was that 
fiery Douglas, who went out to Oregon and the Far West and met his 
death by being gored by a buffalo, as I recollect. Then I recollect 
Robert Fortune, a Scotchman, who, thanks to his high cheek-bones, his 
knowledge of Chinese, and his extraordinary dexterity with chopsticks, 
held his own in those outlandish Chinese places where he risked his life in 
order to obtain information. Those are the days that are past. Those 
are the days when money came in from the wealthy and from those 
who visited the Society. I recollect the time when the Emperor Nicholas 
was at Chiswick. There were more than 14,000 people present ; 
and then came a time of depression. The Horticultural Society had 
certainly given an enormous spur to the life of gardening. But times 
were not prosperous. Chiswick Gardens were curtailed, and the 
arboretum had to be given up. Then we came to South Kensington, 
and there came again a time of outward prosperity, followed by a terrible 
blight. These tactics were changed. You appealed to scientific men 
rather than to the wealthy. You pursued a new course of utility. You 
adopted a distinctly horticultural policy with a lower rate of subscriptions, 
and, thanks to these things, but, above all, to the energy of your Presi- 
dent, Sir Trevor Lawrence, and your hard-working and genial Secretary, 
Mr. Wilks, the Society now is entering upon a career which I trust will 
be as prosperous, if not more so than in the past. I have heard some- 
thing about hybridisation, of which I know little. I have heard 
something which leads me to suppose that the development of that art 
may react upon the profession to which I have the honour to belong. 
Without being a prophet, I seem to see before me a vista of patent hybrids ! 
What a treat for the patent lawyers! and what an accession of work for 
Her Majesty’s Judges! I invite you to drink to the health of the Royal 
Horticultural Society as heartily as I have had the honour to propose it. 
The Chairman (Sir TREvor Lawrence) :—The Master of the Rolls, 
your Excellencies, my Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—I must confess it 
was with peculiar satisfaction that I received an intimation from the 
Master of the Rolls that he would give us the honour of his company 
here to-night. It is quite impossible for anyone who remembers the 
invaluable services which were rendered by his father to the Royal 
Horticultural Society and to the cause of the science of botany to do 
other than rejoice that a man who, like the Master of the Rolls, has 
made his mark in the world, though in a different direction from that of 
