LUNCHEON TO THE COLONIAL GOVEKNORS, ETC. cix 



welfare of our King and country and of his great Dominions beyond 

 the seas. 



The Hon. J. H. Turner then proposed the health of the Chairman, 

 Sir Trevor Lawrence, Bart., President of the Eoyal Horticultural 

 Society. He said: — 



"I feel that all the Colonies are very much indebted to the President 

 of the Eoyal Horticultural Society and to the Society for what they 

 have done to give the people of Great Britain a more correct know- 

 ledge of the overseas parts of the Empire, and I appreciate it the more 

 from my thorough acquaintance with the conditions of the Province 

 which I have the honour to represent in London. 



" Y/hen I came to England some ten years ago I found very little 

 • was known about British Columbia and very incorrect ideas existed 

 about that Province. I have frequently, for instance, been asked what 

 sort of furs and clothing were required there. Some people seemed to 

 i imagine it was a land of ice and snow, whilst some confused the 

 'Province with Colombia in South America, and imagined it to be a very 

 hot country. Noticing this ignorance of the actual conditions, I decided 

 that a practical way to inform the British public would be by an exhi- 

 bition in England of the fruit grown in British Columbia, and I in- 

 duced the Government of that Province to send some over for exhibition. 

 I then saw your able Secretary and interested him in the matter, with 

 the result that a small lot of this fruit was shown in 1903, and this was 

 really the commencement of the Colonial Fruit Shows which have 

 done so much to inform the British public with respect to the climate 

 and the capabilities of British Columbia and other Colonies. These 

 Shows culminated in a grand exhibition of some thirty tons of British 

 Columbia apples last autumn. This was, I believe, the finest show of 

 such fruit that had ever ])een held in Europe, and most effectually in- 

 structed the people here as to what could be produced in that beautiful 

 Western Province of the Dominion. 



" I was much interested a few minutes ago by the speech in which 

 ; reference was made to that great naturalist and wonderful man Douglas, 

 the discoverer of the Douglas Pine. The reference to him appealed to 

 me very much, as I have camped so often under the glorious pines of 

 Vancouver Island and other parts of British Columbia, and only in 1907 

 [ had a motor journey across Vancouver Island from the east to the' 

 west coast (and, by the way, when I left British Columbia seven years 

 previously there was not a motor ^ on that west coast). On this trip, after 

 having passed over the side of a mountain some 2,000 feet in height, we 

 fan down into a grand forest of Douglas Pines, most of them from 

 200 to 300 feet in height and without a branch for 100 feet up. Magni- 

 ficent! Perfectly straight pillars meeting together at that height like 

 ihe Gothic roof of a cathedral. Going out from the bright sunshine 

 nto the dim light and coolness gave me quite the impression of entering 

 3ome magnificent sacred shrine, and there are many hundreds of 

 thousands of acres of such forests in British Columbia. 

 ^ " It is very evident to me that the Eoyal Horticultural Society has 



