JOUENAL 



OF THE 



EOYAL HOETICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Vol. XIV. 1892. 



CONIFEE CONFEEENCE. 



Held at CHISWICK, Octobee 7 and 8, 1891. 



OPENING ADDRESS ON "SOME FEATURES OF 

 INTEREST IN THE ORDER OF CONIFERS." 



By Maxwell T. Mastees, M.D., F.R.S., Corresponding 

 Member of the Institute of France. 



About this time last year, in this very place, Mr. Shirley Hibberd, 

 whose presence on occasions like this we so greatly miss, declared, 

 in the emphatic manner characteristic of him, " that the Dahlia 

 was the most wonderful of all flowers." Nobody gainsaid him. 

 A short time afterwards, also in this place, under like circum- 

 stances, the same speaker asserted " that the Chrysanthemum 

 was the most wonderful of all flowers ! ' ' Still nobody contradicted 

 him. 



In truth, all plants, all living creatures, are so wonderful that 

 it is impossible to say which is the most so. Those which come 

 under notice at the moment must therefore be admitted to have 

 the greater claim to precedence. 



# Permit me, in opening the business of this Conference, to 

 advocate the pretensions of the Conifers, and if, in so doing, I 

 travel in some particulars a little outside the bounds of practical 

 horticulture, I do so of set purpose, in order to introduce variety 



B 



