48 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
his father, should be present here as our guest to-night. The Master of 
the Rolls has referred to some of the early parts of the history of this 
Society. The Society, as he has justly and correctly said, was founded 
in 1804, and our excellent and most energetic Secretary is already asking 
us how we are going to celebrate our centenary. There are numerous 
suggestions, and I am not going to trouble you with them to-night; but 
I think I may fairly claim for the Royal Horticultural Society that 
during the nearly hundred years that it has existed it has done very 
valuable work, not only in the cause of horticulture, but for the advance- 
ment of that which has giyen incalculable pleasure and delight to 
the people of this country. I very much wonder whether that very 
distinguished botanist, Sir Joseph Banks, in co-operation with Mr. 
Andrew Knight, whose name is so well known to hybridists, quite 
foresaw the yery valuable work they were setting on foot when they 
met together at 187 Piccadilly, then occupied by Messrs. Hatchard, 
the booksellers, to inaugurate this Society. The objects of the Society 
were these, to foster and encourage every branch of horticulture and all 
arts and sciences connected with it. And when a few years later the 
Society had a Charter, a Royal Charter, granted to it, the objects were 
set forth very briefly—the improvement of horticulture in all its 
branches, ornamental as well as useful. As the Master of the Rolls 
has already told you, the Society in those early days sent out many 
collectors—not only those whom he has mentioned, but many others 
besides. I venture to think that when the Royal Horticultural 
Society sent Robert Fortune to China it was hardly aware that 
it was laying the foundation for the revolution of a great trade, for trans- 
ferring to one country a great trade which up to that time had been 
the property of another country. I mean the shifting of the tea trade to 
a great extent from China to India. For it was owing to the fact that 
Robert Fortune was sent out by this Society to China that the cultivation 
of tea was undertaken in the Himalayas. It spread thence to Ceylon, and 
so, as we know, at the present time the great bulk of the tea which is 
consumed in Western countries comes, not from China, but from those 
countries into which Robert Fortune introduced it. With regard to the 
Scotchman who could not get out of the way of the bullock, he was gored 
to death in the Sandwich Islands, I believe. But with regard to Douglas he 
has introduced so many valuable plants that it is justly remarked his efforts 
and those of his colleagues have had marvellous results—results which 
have affected all parts of England. ‘ For nowhere can a day’s ride now 
be taken where the landscape is not beautified by some of the introduc- 
tions of the Royal Horticultural Society.’’ That is a quotation from a 
quarto volume which has some value, though not as much as it ought to 
have, by Mr. Andrew Murray, who wrote an account of the Royal 
Horticultural Society. The Master of the Rolls has referred to the 
Chiswick Shows. I have always been of opinion, and every day I live my 
opinion is strengthened, that when any society depends upon the some- 
what fickle favours of fashion sooner or later it is certain to come 
to grief. So far as the fashionable world was coneerned, as the 
Master of the Rolls has observed, it used at one time to favour 
Chiswick. Then something else attracted its attention, and at 
