IMS 



REPORT ON THE 



shall arrive at tho best way of producing different varieties and 

 making the improvements that I have hinted at. 



Some of the papers that are going to be read are directly 

 concerned will) the hybridization of flowers, and their im- 

 provement by cross brooding, and this lends nie to say how 

 sorry I am that Mr. Homer is not here to read his own 

 paper. This is, I think, the first time for several years 

 that he has missed our Auricula Show, and J am sorry to hear 

 that through the dcatli of a relative he is compelled to bo 

 absent. I am sure, however, that he is with us in spirit, and that 

 he will feel it a great disappointment that he is unable to be present. 

 With regard to tho other papers that are to be presented to you, 

 we have the writers here, and I look forward with great pleasure 

 to their reading their papers ; or, if they prefer it, giving us tho 

 gist of thoir papers. Proof copies of tho papers have been placed 

 in the hands of several, but not of all of you ; therefore, I for one 

 shall cortainly protest against any of them being " taken as read" 

 unless tho writers place before the Conference orally the salient 

 points of their papers, and then allow the discussion to take placo 

 upon that introduction. If they do not do that, certainly I 

 should thon prefer that the papers should be read in full, because 

 they will be found to be of very great valuo and interest. 



Before I sit down may I say one word with regard to these 

 Conferences in general ? It has been a very great pleasure to 

 most of us to attend them. Take the Narcissus Conference, a 

 couple of years ago. I suspect that everyone who attended that 

 Conference left with a pleasurable rocollection of what took place ; 

 I fancy everybody must have loarned something from it, and even 

 if they loarnod nothing, tho public had tho opportunity of seeing 

 a very pretty exhibition. 1 hope that in our turn, we shall go 

 away from this meeting having learned something more than we 

 know before, and with tho hope of spreading our information 

 amongst our friends who have not tho privilege of coming to 

 these Conferences. I trust, that we shall carry our observations 

 into practical experience a lter we get home, in improving on tho 

 many forms that are now shown. I think, myself, you have 

 only to go amongst the Narcissi shown here to-day as accessories 

 to the Primroses, to see that there has been a development of 

 those flowers since and as a direct consequence of the Narcissus 

 Conference. I think we may reasonably look forward to a similar 



