OPENING ADDRESS BY THE CHAIRMAN. 



5 



gratifying to know that the Messrs. Sutton, of Reading, are 

 already busy in this direction. 



The vegetables of the immediate future may possibly include 

 the tubers of a Chinese species of Stachys (S. tuberifera) which 

 was put into commerce two or three years ago by MM. 

 Vilmorin et Cie., of Paris. The tubers have an agreeable flavour 

 peculiar to themselves, but seem to require a few years of 

 assiduous cultivation to develop them into a sufficient size to 

 afford a remunerative crop. 



This being the first time such a meeting as the present, with 

 such an object, has been held, I hope you will agree with me that 

 a brief review of our present position will not be out of place. 

 Let us now, therefore, carry back our recollections of vegetable 

 culture twenty-five to thirty years, a period still fresh in the memory 

 of many of you, and try to ascertain approximately what progress 

 has been made during that period, and in what direction it has 

 chiefly tended. The garden vegetables cultivated a quarter of a 

 century ago were much the same as now as regards kinds, and 

 the comparison can thence be made without the introduction of 

 any new element. 



To begin with Peas. As the improvement obtained among 

 these during the period in question will be the subject of a 

 special paper, I need only take a general review of the progress 

 achieved. The varieties of Peas in commerce from twenty-five to 

 thirty years ago were probably as numerous as at the present time. 

 During the interval an uninterrupted stream of novelties have been 

 offered to the public year after year, and during the same time 

 upwards of a hundred names have disappeared from catalogues. 

 Of the new varieties brought into cultivation in the period under 

 review forty-two have been awarded First Class Certificates by the 

 Royal Horticultural Society, after having been grown in the 

 comparative trials in the Society's garden, and most of these 

 were subsequently put into commerce ; but eight or ten of them 

 have already disappeared. Besides these, a large number of new, 

 or so-called new, varieties have been sent out without having 

 been submitted to the test of the Chiswick trials ; and, although 

 some are acquisitions, many of them soon passed into oblivion, 

 or were found to be synonymous with other sorts. Many of the 

 older sorts, however, still hold their place ; among such are 

 notably Champion of England, Veitch's Perfection, Ne Plus 



