REPORT OF THE APPLE AND PEAR CONFERENCE. 



18 



APPLE AND PEAE CONFERENCE, 1888. 



The Conference, which was held in the Great 

 Vinery of the Society's Gardens at Chiswick, was 

 opened on Tuesday, October 16, 1888. The pro- 

 ceedings commenced at 3 p.m. with an address from 

 Sir Teevoe Laweence, Bart., M.P., President of the 

 Society, who spoke as follows : — 



It is my duty, and I think it is a most agreeable duty, having 

 the honour of holding the office of President of the Royal Hor- 

 ticultural Society, to make a few — and I promise they shall be 

 very few — introductory remarks in opening the exhibition of this 

 very extensive collection of fruit. I should desire in the first 

 place to disclaim in the strongest possible way any pretension 

 whatever to be entitled to express an opinion on the subject of 

 fruit cultivation myself. At the same time a very large amount of 

 interest is being at the present moment brought to bear 

 upon the question of fruit cultivation, I believe in some measure 

 due to the observations that have been made by gentlemen occu- 

 pying positions in the political world, very often somewhat at a 

 loss for a subject. I think I may venture to remind you that an 

 address of some considerable length was delivered lately at Hawar- 

 den by Mr. Gladstone, but I am not quite sure that those per- 

 sons who read the accounts of the ladies who kept thirty or forty 

 chickens and made £5 per annum out of them, or of the persons 

 who made ^40 from 1 acre of Strawberries, will not be disap- 

 pointed if they expect to repeat so remarkable a success. It is 

 a matter of importance in dealing with this subject that we shall 

 not pitch our anticipations too high, and it should not be sup- 

 posed that in extending, as reasonably as may be extended, the 

 cultivation of hardy fruit, any real panacea for the troubles 

 which have been afflicting the agricultural classes of this country 



