JOUENAL 



OF THE 



Royal Horticultural Society. 



Vol. XX. 1896. 

 Part II. 



THE EOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 

 By Sir Trevor Lawrence, Bart., President, R.H.S. 



[Read at Chester, August 4, 1896.] 



The inhabitants of Great Britain have, during the last half- 

 century, and especially of late years, grown so accustomed to be 

 surrounded by flowers, in town and country alike, that they have 

 come to regard the present state of British horticulture as a 

 matter of course. But no one who carries his mind back to the 

 beginning of the century can fail to be struck by the extraordinary 

 progress which gardening and gardens have since made. It has 

 often been remarked that the world has advanced more rapidly 

 during Her Gracious Majesty the Queen's long and happy reign in 

 all that contributes to the health, comfort, and convenience of 

 life — that is to say, to its happiness — than during the preceding 

 500 years. While the sciences generally have progressed with giant 

 strides, horticultural science has not lagged behind. During the 

 century now near its end trees and shrubs, annuals and perennials, 

 flowers and fruits, have been introduced from foreign countries 

 in vast numbers ; while the abilities of several generations of 

 gardeners have found full scope for their exercise among a garden- 

 loving people in improving old and raising new varieties of 



