16 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



note that in introducing the Araucarias from Chili and Australia, 

 the Sequoias and Libocedrus from the North-west Pacific, or 

 the nearly allied Cycads from South Africa and Australia, we are 

 but bringing back plants which flourished at various epochs upon 

 our own soil. I do not know anything more wonderful from this 

 point of view than the history of the genus Ginkgo, species of 

 which once overspread the whole of the temperate and warmer 

 regions of the globe, and one of which, the Maidenhair tree, known 

 to us as wild only in China and as a cultivated plant, cannot be 

 distinguished from the fossil plants. It is, in fact, a survivor 

 from those extremely remote times of which mention has been 

 made.* If in the course of our rambles we were to meet a living 

 Icthyosaurus,! or any other uncanny monster, such as those 

 whose models are placed in the grounds of the Crystal Palace, 

 we should probably be not a little startled. And yet in the 

 Ginkgo of Chinsi, the Amuc aria Cunninghamii of North Australia, 

 the Libocedrus decurrens of North-west America, the Servian 

 Spruce {Picea Omorika), and even the Eedwood of California, 

 we have actually living in our gardens trees indistinguishable 

 from those, some of which must have existed on the soil of our 

 own land, such as it then was, ages before the gigantic Saurians 

 before mentioned. 



Economic Value. 

 But it is our business to study the prospects as well as the past 

 history of these trees, and I venture to hope that one result of 

 the present Conference will be the accumulation of evidence con- 

 cerning the economic value of these introductions, especially of 

 some of the more recent ones. AVe all know the value, as a 

 decorative tree, of the Lebanon Cedar, one of the earliest of intro- 

 ductions of this kind, and we have had opportunity of testing the 

 value of the Weymouth Pine. But with regard to many others 

 we are still in doubt. Has not the Deodar, for instance, which 

 was introduced with such great hopes, rather disappointed our 

 expectations ? Is the Douglas Fir likely to be of any great value 

 as a timber tree ? t Will either of them equal the Corsican 

 Pine or the Menzies Spruce, which were introduced at an earlier 



* Its powers of endurance are further curiously illustrated by the fact 

 that this tree tolerates the smoky atmosphere of towns as well, if not 

 better, than most others. 



f See Dr. Schlich's remarks on the Earl of Mansfield's plantation of 

 Douglas Firs in Gardeners'' Chronicle, Nov. 10, 1888, pp. 533, 568, and 596 



