830 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society and of the Surrey 

 Education Committee, and others. 



The building is contained within one story, erected upon a site ad- 

 joining the ranges of glass-houses, and is warmed by hot- water radiators 

 and lighted with acetylene gas. The external elevations are finished 

 with rough-cast cement, rising from a plinth of red bricks, and the roof 

 is covered with red tiles. It contains a students' laboratory about 

 21 feet by 36 feet, a small research laboratory, 14 feet 6 inches by 

 11 feet 6 inches, with a photographic dark-room attached. There is also 

 a small glass annexe for experiments in plant physiology and diseases ; 

 and an office. 



For a full hundred years the Society has maintained gardens for the 

 experimental trial of fruits, flowers, and vegetables, and of all other 

 matters and things connected with practical garden work. The Society 

 has introduced hundreds of new plants from abroad of economic or 

 ornamental value ; and it has tested many thousands of professed 

 novelties, thus bringing some sort of order out of the otherwise chaos of 

 multitudinous names given to one and the same variety by different 

 growers, seedsmen, and nurserymen. It has also by this means indicated 

 to the general public the best varieties to plant and to grow, thus con- 

 ferring a far greater benefit on the country at large than the public is at 

 all cognisant of. 



Thus : , 



(1) By the introduction of new and valuable plants ; 



(2) By the elimination of synonyms ; and 



(3) By pointing out the best varieties, 



the Society has rendered an inestimable benefit to — 



(1) The country at large ; 



(2) The trades of nurserymen, market gardeners, greengrocers, and 



fruit and vegetable sellers ; and 



(3) The private gentleman's garden, 



all of which it has vastly enriched. 



Besides its work with plants, the Society has always been able to send 

 out a stream — small, it is true, but constant — of trained and more or less 

 skilled gardeners, who, passing away into all parts of the country and to 

 our Colonies, have carried with them the best traditions of the art of 

 gardening. The Society has now extended this work by the erection of 

 this laboratoi-y, which is to be partly devoted to the training of young 

 men in the elements of chemistry, biology, physiology, and kindred 

 sciences as applied to the gardener's art. 



The student's part of the laboratory is equipped with the most 

 suitable apparatus that can be secured. There are work-tables and 

 lockers for the use of twenty-four students at a time, gas and water 

 supplies, a fume-chamber, chemical reagent cupboards, herbarium, specimen 

 museum, Fram microscopes (each with two objectives), chemical and 

 physical balances, and other apparatus suited to the study of plants, 

 how they live their lives, and of the soil and air in which they live. 

 A demonstration lantern with screen is also provided for the lecturer. 



