CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES OF 

 CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 



ADDRESS MY 



Sir FRANCIS G. OGILYIE, C.B., LL.P., 



PRESIDENT OF THE CONFERENCE. 



I am not qualified to speak with authority on any one of the specialist 

 studies to which individual members of the Corresponding Societies give 

 ardent and continued attention. I am among those who maintain an 

 outsider's acquaintance with some of these studies, and who find, even 

 in that, a source of many pleasures in daily life. We outsiders enjoy the 

 byways of science. Your active members tread the highways and 

 secondary roads from and to which the byways lead. The Corresponding 

 Societies include members of all shades as to interest in science — from 

 keen investigators who render frequent service in the advancement of 

 science to those who merely toy with a hobby. 



Yet all of us feel that these societies are a valuable national asset, 

 and we wish to see a good annual return from that asset. Our aim is to 

 promote life within our societies. Each wishes to promote his own 

 society's usefulness to its members, its growth and its influence in its 

 home area. In addressing you to-day I propose to discuss some matters 

 that affect success in these aims. 



Team Work. 



My predecessor in this chair, Sir John Russell, addressed you on 

 ' Regional Surveys,' and most matters of general interest to the Corre- 

 sponding Societies of to-day are pertinent, directly or indirectly, to 

 regional surveys. Indeed the aim of these surveys is to bring together 

 in compact form and in reasoned relation considerations which emerge 

 in the work of these societies. Thus the co-operation of every society, 

 however specialised its aims, is most desirable for the progress and value 

 of a regional survey. 



Regional Survey is a fine field for team work, and within our several 

 local societies team work is widespread — even if the ' team " has but 

 two or three members. Group working is of the essence of our constitu- 

 tions. In all the subjects in which we take interest comparative records 

 are generally the result of the grouping of observations. For ready 

 application this calls for, at least, a general agreement as to tamer and 

 method. 



Vegetation Surveys. 



Let us consider this in one particular matter of study. The pre- 

 paration of a Vegetation Survey of an area gives added intercut to the 

 observations of members who make themselves responsible for individual 

 sections of the work. 



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