CXXxii PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and we can guide our operations with at least an approximately true fore- 

 cast of the result. 



" The difficulty in all natural inquiries is to draft the questions in such 

 a way that Nature can answer them, and it is just this method of 

 formulation with which we are now provided. 



" "When the Experimental Station comes into being, as we may be con- 

 fident it will, trouble may arise from the multitude of problems which 

 the wide area of horticulture presents. We may expect a profusion of 

 suggestions, and the choice of the special inquiries which are to be under- 

 taken at YVisley may not be easy. The resources available must in any 

 case be at first restricted, and success will depend on the selection of a 

 manageable scheme of work. The programme must be modest. The 

 number of observers will at first be small, one or two perhaps, and their 

 attention should be concentrated. It will probably be found that the 

 various questions we should all like to see answered from Wisley will be 

 divisible into two classes : those which relate to breeding, that is to say the 

 creation and fixation of types or varieties, and those which relate to cultural 

 methods. No one who has watched the progress of horticultural biology 

 can, I think, doubt that it is to the former that attention should be 

 primarily devoted. Not merely are they in every sense the fundamental 

 problems on which all the rest depend, but it is they which demand exactly 

 the condition of permanence and continuity which a permanent corporation 

 like the Royal Horticultural Society can provide. 



" Advances in cultural methods are made with comparative ease by 

 individuals. There are instances, as for example that of fruit-growinu. 

 in which records have to be continued over a long period of years, but 

 they are the exception. Moreover, work on these lines is already going 

 on both in the numerous American stations and also in England at the 

 YYoburn Experimental Fruit Farm, to mention no others, and the results 

 attained are available for all. 



" The same is true of that other great branch of horticultural progress 

 the introduction of new and rare plants from abroad. In the early days 

 this properly formed an important part of the Society's functions, and we 

 are proud to remember that the work of Fortune and of Douglas was in- 

 stigated and endowed by the Royal Horticultural Society. But, with the 

 changes that have supervened in the conditions of travel and trade, this 

 work of collecting has been taken up both by wealthy patrons of horti- 

 culture and by the great commercial firms, and it is doubtful whether the 

 Society could do much more than is being now done by these agencies, or 

 whether it is desirable that we should compete with them in the same 

 field. 



" If resources were unlimited all these objects might fitly be under- 

 taken, but we must choose one object, and I believe there is none so suit- 

 able or so likely to give important results as an inquiry into the laws of 

 breeding. As has been said, such work demands the continuity which 

 the life of a great society provides. No other institution is engaged in 

 exactly similar work. The knowledge to be attained is universally ad- 

 mitted to be that which is most urgently needed both by naturalists and 

 practical men alike. 



"It is true that breeding experiments on a large scale are being now 



