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ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and a fine colour ; the flavour of the Hamburgh kinds was very- 

 good ; even the Muscats towards the top of the house were very 

 fair ; but the Hamburghs, especially the Frankenthal variety, are 

 the kinds which, unquestionably, ought to be selected for a tem- 

 perature such as these figures indicate. The house was kept as 

 dry as possible, no water being supplied during the month. It 

 was a very bad season also for keeping grapes ; those planted 

 inside kept better than those planted outside. The season was 

 bad for ripening, being the worst we have had for forty years. 



XI. Observations on the Kumquat. By R. Fortune, Esq. 



At our last meeting I was called upon, somewhat unexpectedly, by 

 Mr. Wilson', Chairman of the Fruit Committee, to give some in- 

 formation about a very interesting little orange called Kumquat 

 by the Chinese, which was then exhibited by Mr. Bateman. I 

 shall now endeavour to fulfil the promise I then made. 



It is rather more than a quarter of a century since I had 

 the honour of being sent out to China in the service of the Society 

 by the Council of that day. Before that time (1842) China had 

 been all but a sealed-up country to the rest of the world. Two 

 southern towns, Canton and Macao, were the only places where 

 Europeans were allowed to visit or reside. But, although fo- 

 reigners were thus restricted, some ardent lovers of botanical 

 pursuits, and notably amongst them the late Mr. J ohn Reeves, 

 the father of a worthy Member of our present Council, were suc- 

 cessful in introducing many beautiful new plants to Europe and 

 to America. If I mention the Glycine, the Camellia, the Azalea, 

 and the Chrysanthemum as some amongst many others which were 

 introduced by these early pioneers, it will be seen how much our 

 gardens were indebted to their disinterested labours. In the 

 present day we could scarcely imagine our gardens to be complete 

 without such ornaments ; and what a void there would be were 

 such beautiful plants suddenly removed ! 



In 1842, when the China war, as it was called, came to an end, 

 and when more northerly parts of the empire were openei to 

 Europeans, the Council of the Society naturally thought that a 

 country which already had produced so many charming plants, in 

 all likelihood contained many more worthy of being introduced 



