2 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



The Club, I believe, continues to flourish, having a 

 membership at present of 305. During the year we 

 have lost eight of our number through death : — namely, 

 General J. J. Bos well. G.B, Mr R. Fitzroy Bell, Mr W. B. 

 Swan, Mr Robert Weddell, Mr Wm. Young, Mr R. Burdon 

 Sanderson, Rev. Ambrose Jones, and Lord Tweedmouth. 

 Death is no respecter of persons, and these are the names 

 of men who have been prominent in their various walks 

 in life, and who have been useful and eminent in the 

 communities which knew them best. 



I have had great difficulty, because I am not a specialist 

 in any of the subjects of most interest to you as natur- 

 alists, in finding a theme on which to address j'ou shortly 

 as your retiring President, and it is only after much 

 consideration that I have taken the liberty of compiling 

 a few notes which, if I may be permitted the somewhat 

 slang expression, savour a little of " the shop." The 

 subject of them may be briefly defined as "Natural 

 pasture-lands, and how they become botanically altered 

 by age and treatment," and I must ask you to allow 

 me to alter the phrasing of some parts of this Address 

 before publication in the Transactions, as, owing to the 

 bad harvest and a somewhat unusual amount of public 

 work, my time has lately been very much occupied. The 

 subject might be otherwise designated — " Some points in 

 practical Graminology;" but as I expect to mention other 

 plants besides Grasses, that title might involve a " termino- 

 logical inexactitude " which it would be better to avoid. 

 When I began about thirty years ago to attend meetings of 

 the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, I had been for the 

 preceding seven years engaged in that operation most 

 abhorrent to the botanist, or at least to the plant-collector, 

 the draining and bringing into cultivation of the bogs and 

 moorlands of an extensive and high-lying farm ; and at 

 that time I had dreams of prosecuting Botany as a 

 relaxation for which I had a strong liking when a 

 student at the University of Aberdeen, The claims of 



