ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING. 



iii 



sistent, and patient effort, and marks, both by facts and figures, the great 

 progress of the Society in all its many departments, and especially in relation 

 to its War Service, which has been strenuous and continuous in daily work, 

 in Publications, in Literature, in Lectures, and in the provision of Funds and 

 Plants and Seeds for Allotments and other patriotic purposes. 



The Society's War Relief Fund has, indeed, made very great progress during 

 the year, thanks to its zealous Executive Committee, representative of the whole 

 Kingdom, as I know from being a member of it, who has seen the good work of 

 its President, Lady Northcote, C.S.I. , its Chairman, Sir Harry Veitch, V.M.H., and 

 the many Ladies and Gentlemen who have given their services, and its Secre- 

 taries, Mr. Howe and Mr. Henschell, C.C. ; and I can also realize the value 

 and present need of our campaign, in which about ^30,000 has already been 

 collected, in order to aid in the restoration of the ravaged lands of our Allies : 

 France, Belgium, Italy, Roumania, and Serbia ; while my personal knowledge as 

 atravellerin all those devastated countries, and of theirindustrious peasantries, en- 

 ables me to testify to the vast help which has been and will thus be rendered to their 

 peoples by the free gift of the best and most carefully selected Trees, Plants, and 

 Seeds and the means and knowledge for restoring cultivation and re-afforestation. 



Again, the seeds and bulbs sent by the Society to our own fellow-countrymen, 

 prisoners in Germany, and to camps and hospitals in France and along the 

 Mediterranean sea-board, have also given very great help, hope, and happiness 

 to the brave but distressed sufferers. What our gifts to the British prisoners in 

 Germany have meant in food, in joy, in hope, in sympathy, and in consolation 

 stands out in the photographs we have recently received from Ruhleben and 

 other prisons of our own poor captives ! 



The Rev. George Henslow, M.A., F.R.S., V.M.H., the Society's Professor of 

 Botany, who has for many years been associated with the Society, and to whose 

 Lectures we are all so greatly indebted for instruction in the marvels of plant- 

 life-and-growth, has, to our great regret, recently retired, and the Fellows will 

 be glad to know that Dr. Rendle, F.R.S., V.M.H., of the Natural History Museum, 

 South Kensington, has been appointed to the Society's Botanical Professorship. 

 (Applause.) 



With Peace, there is every promise that the Society's National Diploma 

 Examinations will now fulfil their full educational purpose. The War years 

 have resulted in some reduction in the number of candidates ; but there is every 

 indication of a great revival of this most important National Examination, 

 conducted by the Society. 



The Society's Examinations have, indeed, become of increasing importance 

 and are more and more widely resorted to in both the individual and national 

 interests ; and the recent setting up of a Board of Examiners, possessing both 

 scientific and practical knowledge and experience, will go far to win the con- 

 fidence of candidates and of Educational and Municipal Authorities, for whom 

 I can thus speak as having been Mayor of Hull and Chairman of its Botanic 

 Gardens, and for long President of the Municipal Corporations' Association of 

 the Kingdom. Particular attention has been given to the Teachers' Examinations, 

 for instruction in Horticulture in Schools is becoming so important that, in 

 response to Educational requests, an Honours Examination for Teachers has also 

 been set up ; while actual practical, no less than scientific and theoretic, know- 

 ledge and work is now taking an essential part in the Teachers' Examinations. 



Such really high educational work by the Society enabled me to induce my 

 colleagues on the Senate of the University of London to raise Horticultural 

 Studies and Research to University rank, by instituting Science Degrees in 

 Horticulture (B.Sc. Hort., M.Sc. Hort., D.Sc. Hort.), for which there are already 

 several candidates ; and the Horticultural Education Committee of the Senate, 

 of which I am Chairman, has also presented a Report, urging the University to 

 increase the scope and utility of its Horticultural Teaching and Examinations 

 through its University- Extension System, in both Rural and Urban Districts, 

 and by Lectures and Teaching throughout the Kingdom, all which have been 

 made possible by the pioneer educational work of our Society. The Society's 

 series of Horticultural Charts, illustrating processes and pests in garden-cultiva- 

 tion, have proved a difficult item of new work ; but, from the specimen Charts 

 you see here, hanging on these walls, you will appreciate the class of work which 

 is being done, and I think they sufficiently indicate their value ; and, when the 

 series is complete, a verv good and necessary work will have been accomplished, 

 and one which cannot fail to advance educational development and progress. 



Our Lindley Library Committee keep clearly before their minds the duty 

 committed to them by the Council when our new Library Trust was formed 

 a few years ago ; and no opportunity has been lost of acquiring valuable books 

 — books which are not luxuries to be taxed but necessities to be read ; which 



