376 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. [Sess. LXXxu. 
to many schemes of social amelioration. One of the most 
interesting of these to a botanist is that spoken of as the 
dream oi Mr. Ebenezer Howard. 
THE GARDEN CITY. 
This modern Utopia, announced only a few years ago, has 
now taken definite shape as a promising and so far successful 
object-lesson at the Letchworth estate, near Hitchin, in 
Hertfordshire. The matter has attracted some attention in 
Scotland from a proposal to found a second Garden City in 
connection with the projected Naval Base at Rosytli on the 
Forth. The object of that movement, which has particular 
interest for us, is the final clause in the manifesto, namely :-— 
(c) Promoting the erection of sanitary and beautiful 
dwellings with adequate space for gardens and 
recreation. 
Speaking of the problem designed to be solved by the 
Garden City movement, Earl Grey says :—* What, then, is the 
evil? It is admitted on all hands that most of the larger 
cities of England, owing to their ill-regulated and anarchic 
growth, have become the very cancers of our body politic, 
and that they are sapping the strength and poisoning the 
character of the nation. No one who realises that physique 
and character are the products of environment as well as 
heredity can fail to regard the suburban excrescences of our 
smoke-enveloped and air- exhausted towns with feelings 
shortof positive consternation. Streets upon streets of sunless 
slums with nothing to relieve their squalid and depressing 
monotony—little provision for recreation beyond that which 
is supplied by low music-halls and still lower public-houses; 
boys turned out of school at fourteen years of age, and no 
organised influence to mould them into honest citizenship at 
the age at which their characters are most impressionable. 
These are the evils with which we have to contend, and 
unless some effective steps are taken to counteract their 
influence on the character, temperament, and physique of our 
people, the manhood of our nation must deteriorate, and we 
shall not be able to retain our present leading position in the 
world.” 
Referring to the experience of Mr. Cadbury of Bourneville, 
