CCXiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



Club in accordance with their demands and the value of the 

 subscriptions each had paid in. The Club had proved an advantage 

 in many ways, to everyone concerned, not only in the matter of 

 prices but in the superior quality of the goods. The methods 

 adopted were helpful and instructive, particularly in regard to the 

 demonstration of the value of good seed in the better crops secured 

 over poor seed, and the right use of suitable manures, natural and 

 artificial. 



The representative of the Hale End Society asked if other Societies 

 could give him any helpful suggestions to encourage exhibitors, who 

 have passed the novice stage, to continue competition with experienced 

 exhibitors. His difficulty was that when once exhibitors have suc- 

 cessfully passed the Classes arranged for novices, and are afterwards 

 required to compete with more experienced exhibitors, professional or 

 amateur, failure to secure a prize resulted in ultimate withdrawal 

 from the Competitions. 



Considerable discussion followed, but no suggestion was forth- 

 coming which really met the case. The Chairman said the experience 

 of the Hale End Society was a very general one, and once the Show 

 had helped the novice by giving him a prize for successful competition 

 in the Novice Classes, with that encouragement behind him, there 

 was nothing but grit to tide over the period of work and application 

 lying between the elementary success and a position in the prize 

 list of the more difficult classes. But in the Cottagers' Classes it was 

 a good plan to have a standing rule that no one exhibitor might take 

 more than so much in money, whatever the number of classes he 

 might be awarded prizes in by the Judges. How much exactly this 

 sum of limitation should be must be decided by each Society for itself. 



Mrs. Fitzstephen O'Sullivan attended the Conference, and spoke 

 on the question of aid from the Development Fund which the Board 

 of Agriculture might be asked to dispense to assist exhibitors at 

 Horticultural Shows in getting their produce to Exhibitions. She 

 asked that this subject should be introduced to the notice of the 

 Council, and asked further whether, from the same fund, provision 

 might not be forthcoming for the establishment of centres of Horti- 

 cultural training in the County of London. 



The Conference closed with a hearty vote of thanks to the 

 Chairman. 



GENERAL MEETING. 



October 7, 1913. 



Mr. T. W. Saunders in the Chair. 



Fellows elected (41). — Capt. F. Alston, B. F. Baines, Mrs. E. Board- 

 man, W. McK. Bradley, Miss H. Crawford, Mrs. C. A. Denyer, K. 

 Edgcumbe, Sir Steyning Edgerley, W. J. Empson, Miss V. G. Fraser, 

 Mrs. C. H. Garton, Maj.-Gen. Sir Charles F. Hadden, K.C.B., H, T. 



