320 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



OX CONIFERS. 

 By Mr. W. Coleman, F.R.H.S. 

 [Read October 8.] 



In response to a compliment paid to me by the Council, I am 

 here to-day to offer a few remarks upon Conifers. But before I 

 proceed, I must thank Messrs. Veitch, Messrs. Paul, and Mr. 

 W. Paul, not only for the compliment they have paid to me, but 

 also for the generous way in which they have rallied round the 

 Royal Horticultural Society in sending such beautiful repre- 

 sentati re collections for the decoration of the hall to-day. These 

 specimens, so kindly brought to us at expense and risk, have 

 afforded to me and others, I have no doubt, a great deal of 

 pleasure ; and whilst regretting that I have not been able to dwell 

 upon their examination, I must repeat our thanks for the use of 

 so many choice specimens. In the presence of so many botanists, 

 these remarks, it is hardly necessary for me to say, will be of a 

 practical nature, especially as our subject is suitability to our 

 soils and climate, utility in our trade and commerce, and orna- 

 ment to our lawns, hillsides, and valleys. The popular study 

 of Conifers being so modern, unlike the florist or the fruitist, 

 I cannot go back a century or so for a wild flower, or a wild 

 plum, make drawings, and build up, bit by bit, until the perfect 

 flower and the perfect fruit, as seen to-day, are placed before 

 you. One mighty step, however, I can take. I can step back 

 to Solomon's house of cedar, and to the time of those ancients 

 who used the stone and the Aleppo pines in ship-building, and 

 shut in Constantinople with gates made of cypress wood, which 

 stood sound for eleven hundred years. I can point to these and 

 say, there exists no doubt that these beautiful exogens, which 

 entered so largely into the formation of the coal we are now 

 burning, were as perfect then as they are to-day. I can point 

 to the great Sequoias, 2,000 years old, which are still growing ; 

 and again, nearer home, to the noble Scotch Firs, whose hoary 

 heads covered hundreds of square miles north of the Tweed, 

 long before the Picts and Scots cast their longing glances south- 

 ward. In another respect florists, fruitists, and arboriculturists 

 stand on even ground, for all have toiled unselfishly for the health 

 and happiness of their fellow-men. All, too, have passed through 



