* 
and the counteracting influence of Dean Herb 
THE ORCHID REVIEW’ 233 
THE HYBRIDISATION CONFERENCE. 
THE Conference on Hybridisation and Cross-breeding, convened by the 
Royal Horticultural Society, which may be described as the most important 
event of the Society’s year, was opened at the Society’s Gardens, Chiswick, 
on July r1th, and brought together a thoroughly representative gathering, 
including several distinguished Continental and American hybridists. The 
exhibits were staged in the big Vinery, and as the day was fine and very hot 
it proved anything but a suitable building for the purpose, the heat being 
excessive. The various Committees, including a special one appointed to 
advise the Council as to the awards, met at 12 o’clock, and, after adjudicating 
upon the exhibits, were entertained at luncheon, together with the foreign 
guests; and this being over, the business of the Conference proper 
commenced. An account of the Orchids exhibited will be found on another 
page, and in the following report we shall have to confine ourselves chiefly 
to Orchids and to those general questions which have some bearing upon 
the subject. 
The Conference was held in a large tent on the lawn, Dr. Masters, 
F.R.S., being in the Chair. In his opening remarks, the Chairman, after 
welcoming ‘“‘ our friends from across the sea,” thanked the Council of the 
Royal Horticultural Society for the opportunity of meeting in these time- 
honoured gardens to discuss what he ventured to think was one of the most 
important subjects in modern progressive horticulture. To appreciate the 
importance of cross-breeding and hybridisation, we had only to look round 
our gardens and exhibition tents, or to scan the catalogues of our nursery- 
men. A few years ago the phrase ‘‘ new plants” meant new introductions 
from abroad, but now, with the possible exception of Orchids, such plants 
were relatively few. The new plants of to-day were mostly products of the 
gardener’s skill. Selection had done much to improve our garden plants, 
but it was cross-breeding that furnished the materials for selection. After 
alluding to some of the early hybridists, the prejudices which then prevailed, 
ert, who demonstrated the 
lluded to the natural hybrid 
fact that hybrids existed in nature, the speaker a 
hich were afterwards 
Orchids indicated by Reichenbach, some of w 
confirmed by Messrs. Veitch and others. A prejudice still existed in the 
minds of certain botanists, which he thought mistaken, as we ought to 
welcome hybridisation as one means of ascertaining the true relationships 
of plants and the limitations of species and genera. For scientific reasons 
as well as for practical ones, the study of cross-breeding was important, and 
we should welcome the opportunity which this Conference affords of 
extending our knowledge of the subject. : 
Mr. W. Bateson, M.A., F.R.S., dealt with “‘ Hybridisation and Cross- 
