72 JOURNAL OF THE EOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



CONIFER CONFERENCE. 



OcTOBEE 8, 1891 (Second Day). 



OPENING ADDEESS. 

 By Mr. W. T. Thiselton Dyee, C.M.G., F.E.S., &c. 



In the absence of Professor Isaac Bayley Balfour, who was suffer- 

 ing from ill health, Mr. W. T. Thiselton Dyer, C.M.G., was 

 moved to the chair. He expressed his regret that Professor 

 Balfour was unable to be present, and he read a telegram from 

 that gentleman, then in Carlsbad, wishing the Conference every 

 success. Mr. Thiselton Dyer thought there could be no doubt 

 whatever as to the success of the Conference, and it was largely 

 due to the energy of Professor Balfour and his friends from 

 Scotland. A glance at the splendid exhibition proved that it 

 had been possible to get together a most complete collection of 

 coniferous plants grown in the British Islands. 



Anyone who had not travelled in Scotland could form no 

 idea of the extent to which rare Conifers were cultivated in that 

 country, and the splendid development which they attained. The 

 Chairman, by way of illustrating these remarks, directed the 

 attention of the audience to some large photographs representing 

 specimens of Coniferae to be seen at Murthly Castle in Perthshire, 

 where they flourished, and where stately and magnificent exam- 

 ples, 70, 80, and 100 feet high, were to be met with. Such trees 

 could only be seen in Scotland, and were the result of a peculiar 

 association of physical conditions. In the south-west of England 

 it was impossible to find a parallel, although even on the sun- 

 burnt soil of Kew good specimens of the Pines proper were occa- 

 sionally to be seen. With regard to the Abies, however — that 

 section of Conifers of which the Spruces may be taken as a type — 

 a state of things prevailed in Scotland which could not be rivalled 

 in England. On the other hand, the climate in the south-west 



