418 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



It is nob easy to express my sentiments in a foreign tongue. Your 

 proverb occurs to my mind, " Silence speaks louder than words." We 

 in Japan have a similar proverb. 



You have invited us to your show of flowers and to have the privilege 

 of meeting you here. Our appreciation of your cordial hospitality is 

 very greats and I appeal to your kind hearts to understand what, though 

 my words are few, you know I wish to say in response to the toast. 



With regard to the Japan-British Exhibition, to which your President 

 has referred, I think we are able to show something in our gardens there 

 of a nature specially illustrative of our country. The several gardens 

 are not purely Japanese. They manifest the good feeling existing 

 between the horticulturists of England and Japan ; equally they sym- 

 bolize the alliance between our countries, for Japan supplied the ideas 

 and the plants while Great Britain contributed the site and materials. 

 And so ' ' The Garden of Peace ' ' is the name aptly given to one of the 

 gardens, meaning the peace in our relation to one another. 



I thank you again for the manner in which this toast has been 

 received, and wish your Society every prosperity and success in future 

 years. 



His Excellency the Japanese Ambassador, Mr. Takaaki Kato, rose 

 to propose the toast of " The Eoyal Horticultural Society." He said: 



I add my appreciation of the kindness shown by the President and 

 Council of the Eoyal Horticultural Society in arranging this visit to 

 their Summer Show. We have been given no little pleasure. I have 

 further to express the gratitude of my countrymen for the interest 

 this Society has shown in them. To-day's hospitality, and the cups 

 awarded to the exhibits at the Japan-British Exhibition, testify to such 

 interest. 



The Royal Horticultural Society has had an honourable career now 

 extending over a century. During these long years it has known many 

 vicissitudes. The records of thirty years ago show an impoverished 

 state of affairs, and it would have appeared that the Society must then 

 come to an end. Thus in 1887 a debt existed of £1,150; there was an 

 annual outgoing of £3,600, with an income of less than £3,000 from 

 only 1,100 Fellows. Such was the condition of the Society then; but 

 when Sir Trevor Lawrence, the President, with other gentlemen, set to 

 work to resuscitate this fast-failing Society, there was a spontaneous 

 change for the better. The result is that the excellent work then 

 undertaken and since maintained by the Society has raised it to one 

 of the leading scientific institutions of the world. To-day it has 

 12,000 Fellows; an annual income of £24,000; a magnificent exhibition 

 hall and offices costing nearly £50,000; a famous garden of sixty acres; 

 and a handsome reserve fund^ 



There is no work in this world more estimable than that directed by 

 this Society. Gardening ennobles character and makes men forget the 

 worries of life. Art and artistic productions by human hands have 

 virtues which require application, time, and money to attain them, 



