VICTORIA MEDAL OF HONOUR. 



573 



first place it would not have been at all becoming if the Council, 

 who had the selection of the names, should have distributed the 

 medals among its own members. Then there were reasons — 

 official reasons, private reasons — why certain gentlemen, who 

 were invited to become recipients, thought it their duty to 

 decline. The result was that the recipients of the medal included 

 eight botanists — he took them first, as science beyond all things 

 was the moving power of the world at the present time. At the 

 head of them they had the distinguished botanist who sat on his 

 right (Sir Joseph Hooker), a man who during a long life had 

 done more valuable work in the science of botany than any other 

 man had ever achieved. Then they had six collectors and 

 hybridisers. They had, representing the gardening trade, fourteen 

 nurserymen and men engaged in business. They had two 

 members who represented the market aspect of gardening ; and 

 they had twenty-seven medallists representing practical gardeners, 

 fifteen of whom were amateurs and twelve professional. Then 

 they had one landscape gardener who, with two members of the 

 horticultural press, made up the sixty. He could assure them 

 that the greatest possible trouble was taken in the selection in 

 every case. No doubt the Council had made mistakes in includ- 

 ing names which some might think ought to have been omitted, 

 and in leaving out names that others would think ought to have 

 been included ; but they had done their best to secure a 

 thoroughly representative list of names. He would here like to 

 say that the Queen having sanctioned the establishment of the 

 medal, it would be very distasteful if it were used for purposes of 

 advertising. In conclusion, the President expressed his gratitude 

 to all those who had attended the gathering, and explained that 

 the design for the medal was the work of a lady — Miss Margaret 

 Giles — who had carried out a very graceful conception in a most 

 satisfactory way. 



Sir Joseph Hooker, in responding for botanists, said : — " Mr. 

 President and Gentlemen of the Council, — I feel that you have 

 done me a very great honour in selecting me first amongst the 

 recipients of the Victoria Medal of Honour to respond to your 

 kind and welcome toast. I cannot, however, accept this primacy 

 without embarrassment when I consider how little claim I have 

 to horticultural honours compared with so many other recipients, 

 including some who represent the second and even third genera- 



