TENTH ANNUAL EXHIBITION OF BRITISH-GROWN FRUIT. CXXXI 



Mr. W. Bateson, M.A., F.R.S., V.M.H., in responding to the toast of 

 the health of the various Standing Committees of the Society, said : 

 " When it was announced that Sir Thomas Hanbury had acquired Mr. 

 G. F. Wilson's celebrated garden at Wisley, and devoted it to the use of 

 the Royal Horticultural Society, the hope occurred to many Fellows that 

 this noble benefaction might lead to the creation of an institution for the 

 experimental study of horticultural problems. The need for such an 

 institution has long been recognised, and has been expressed by many 

 writers, both scientific and practical. The Scientific Committee, perceiving 

 the value of the opportunity, have already made representations to the 

 Council on the subject, and the answers received were distinctly sym- 

 pathetic. It is evident, as the Council remind us, that the New Hall must 

 be paid for first, but when this has been done there appears to be a good 

 prospect that the constitution of an Experimental Station at Wisley will 

 be the next project to joe undertaken. 



" It is, therefore, not inappropriate that the Society should begin to 

 consider what the work of such a station should be, the aims that are to 

 be kept in view, and the methods by which they are to be attained. 

 Assuming that funds will be forthcoming — an assumption which the 

 rapid growth of the Society and the extraordinary development of horti- 

 cultural interest seem to justify — how may such resources be used to the 

 best advantage ? 



" In general terms the purpose of our Experimental Station will mani- 

 festly be to conduct such inquiries as are most likely to lead to knowledge, 

 of practical value in the art of horticulture. Now not merely the features 

 special to the particular case of horticulture, but experience of every field 

 in which knowledge of nature has been advanced so as to assist prac- 

 tice, indicate that the work, if it is to be of any value at all, must be 

 scientific. By this it is not meant to imply that elaborate instruments 

 or costly equipment will be needed, but simply that the observations 

 and experiments must be made and recorded with the accuracy and mi- 

 nute precision without which the detection of natural law is impossible. 

 The world of living things, like the world with which the sciences 

 of physics and chemistry more directly deal, is pervaded by fixed 

 rules and systems, which once perceived can be used by us to our advan 

 tage ; but these laws can only be detected by the application of a rigorous 

 method. 



" The phenomena of variation and heredity are to the breeder of plants 

 and animals what heat, electricity, and chemical affinity are to the engineer 

 and the ironmaster. It is certain that scientific method will work for 

 the breeder a change in his art no less momentous than that which it has 

 worked in those other industries. This subject of variation and heredity 

 is one of the few fields of natural knowledge still, comparatively speaking, 

 unexplored ; yet the little that we do know shows that we have only to 

 apply a precise method of experiment to discover truths of high practical 

 value. We have only to glance at the facts to which the work of Mendel 

 has directly led us, to perceive what a powerful instrument has been thus 

 provided for the breeder. The blind process of haphazard selection is at 

 an end. In numberless cases we are now enabled to form a clear con- 

 ception of what we are doing when we try, for instance, to fix a variety, 



