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On July 29 I arrived in London and registered the next morn- 

 ing at the hall of the Royal Horticultural Society as a delegate 

 to the International Conference on Hybridization and Plant Breed- 

 ing, held under the auspicies of the society during the week be- 

 ginning July 30. The many important papers presented at the 

 conference, by such men as Bateson, Johannsen, Pfitzer, Druery, 

 Tschermak, Rosenberg, Ostenfeld, Vilmorin and others, will be 

 published shortly in the regular report : the hearty welcome ex- 

 tended by the members of the Society, the good fellowship among 



all who attended the meetings, and the several very attractive social 

 features arranged by the officials and their friends will be long 

 remembered by those who were fortunate enough to be present. 



The Royal Horticultural Society originated in 1804 in a book 

 shop in Piccadilly. It now owns a splendid hall near Westminster 

 Abbey, costing a quarter of a million dollars, and a beautiful 

 garden for experiments of various kinds with living plants ; and 

 it has a surplus in the treasury of a hundred thousand dollars. 

 There are over ten thousand active members in the society and 

 the annual income is about eighty thousand dollars. 



Among the Europeans attending the meeting were Messrs. 

 Lawrence, Wilks, Stapf, Elliott, Llewelyn, Tschermak, Bateson, 

 M. Vilmorin, P. Vilmorin, Wittmack, Foster, Pfitzer, Druery, 



