10 
ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
what we should keep in view is, the usefulness of having an annually 
recurring occasion for the discussion of matters which during the 
preceding year have fixed our attention. 
Many persons, it may be said, who pursue horticulture as a 
means of livelihood care little for any addition to their knowledge 
which does not imply also an addition to their gain. They are not 
to be blamed ; nor are we likely, in a meeting like the present, to 
neglect the interests of practical men. Eut there are others who 
desire to know, merely for the sake of knowledge, more than those 
who have gone before them have known about the facts of plant 
life. I do not think that men of practice will object to our discuss- 
ing amongst other subjects some which seem to possess no immediate 
practical bearing. It was thought, however, this year, that there 
might be several advantages in roughly classifying our business. 
I^'evertheless, it must be remembered that both science and practice 
merge under the general head of knowledge. A man who finds out 
a better method of growing some plant adds to what we know, just 
as another adds to it who makes out some obscure point in vegetable 
structure. The real difi'erence between science and practice con- 
sists in this, that science takes the whole field of JS'ature for its 
territory, while practice contents itself with a particular portion 
of it. 
I am convinced, however, that practical men, if they were so 
disposed, could with little trouble contribute very usefully to purely 
scientific knowledge. The harvest of facts is ready ; it only needs 
those who will gather it systematically. To record carefully facts 
of importance is to confer a benefit upon science which it is im- 
possible to estimate too highly. It is not necessary to devise at once 
an explanation, or to hesitate too much if the matter does not square 
with preconceived ideas ; it is only necessary to be sure, as far as 
we can be so, that we have observed correctly. Turn over the 
volumes of Mr. Darwin's ''Animals and Plants under Domestication." 
Every page is noted with references to ephemeral and apparently 
trivial sources of information, of which it was reserved for this 
sagacious writer to appreciate the value, l^o one need despair of a 
carefully-recorded fact failing to find its place and use. 
How important it would be to thoroughly comprehend the 
principles of variation ! Yet of the numerous persons who raise 
new varieties of plants, how few there are who record anything of 
their experiences ! Some, no doubt, have acquired a kind of intui> 
tive tact in working with plants. Still, anything like systematised 
knowledge in the matter is still to a great extent a want to be sup- 
