REPORT OF THE COUNCIL FOR THE YEAR 1920. 
iii 
REPORT OF THE COUNCIL FOR THE YEAR 1920. 
1. The Year 1920. — The year 1920 has been mainly occupied with the task 
of reorganizing the various activities of the Society. During the war its chief 
efforts were devoted to food production, but it is now once more able to encourage 
that care for flowers and the decorative side of gardening which adds so much 
to the amenities of our homes. 
2. Obituary. — During the year botany and horticulture have both suffered 
a grievous loss by the death of John Gilbert Baker, who was for some years in 
charge of the Kew Herbarium and whose monographs on various genera of 
garden plants have formed the basis of our knowledge of them. 
By the death of George Monro the Society lost a good friend and horticultural 
charities a generous supporter. He will be long remembered as the founder of 
the great Covent Garden firm that bears his name. 
In spite of the many risks that explorers run, it fortunately rarely happens 
that a botanist lays down his life while engaged in some distant expedition. 
News has, however, been received of the death of Reginald Farrer on the frontier 
between Burma and China on his way home from a two years' expedition in that 
hitherto unexplored region. He was a man of many talents both as a writer 
and as an artist, as well as a gardener with an unrivalled knowledge of alpine 
plants in their native habitats. 
Amongst other losses we have to deplore the deaths of Sir John Wolfe-Barry, 
Adeline Duchess of Bedford, Thomas Bevan, J. Charlesworth, Sir Francis Darwin, 
Lord Faber, Miss M. W. Lawrence, Sir Edmund J. Loder, Bt., Dr. G. V. Perez, 
H. Prime, Sir Walter Smythe, Bt., Lady Wantage, the Dowager Viscountess 
Wolseley, the Countess of Selkirk, Dr. P. Andrea Saccardo, A. A. Peeters, John 
Snell, A. de Candolle, J. A. Duthie, Louis Leroy, and Percival Spencer U. 
Pickering. 
3. Resignations. — It is with great regret that the Council has to announce 
that owing to persistent ill-health Mr. Arthur Sutton has felt himself obliged to 
resign his seat on the Council. For a number of years he has given the Society 
unstinted help and the benefit of his great knowledge and of his influential 
position at the head of his famous firm. 
The Society also loses greatly by the resignation of Lord Balfour of Burleigh, 
who has always devoted himself ungrudgingly to its welfare. The Council has 
marked its appreciation of these services by unanimously recommending his 
nomination as a Vice-President. 
These two vacancies on the Council have been filled by the appointment of 
Mr. Gerald W. E. Loder and Mr. R. W. Wallace, late of Colchester and now of 
Tunbridge Wells. 
A third resignation is that of Sir George Holford, who has declined to allow 
himself to be nominated for re-election at the end of his period of office. He 
wishes, however, to remain in touch with the Society and to place his great 
knowledge of Orchids at its disposal by remaining a Member of the Orchid 
Committee. 
4. The Future. — The Council makes an earnest appeal to all Fellows of the 
Society to obtain as many new Fellows as possible. It is by this means alone 
that the income of the Society can keep pace with its ever-growing expenditure. 
5. Chelsea and Cardiff Meetings. — The Chelsea Meeting was favoured with 
splendid weather and was one of the most successful ever held. If there were 
complaints of the heat in the tents, they have served to convince the Council 
that special efforts must be made to remedy this defect in the future, and the 
Fellows of the Society may also rest assured that every effort will be made to 
avoid a repetition of the* overcrowding in the tents. The area under canvas will 
be greatly increased and the gangways correspondingly widened. 
Everyone who went to Cardiff must have agreed that the exhibits were 
excellent, and that the Meeting would undoubtedly have been a greater success 
than it actually was if the weather had been in the least propitious. As a matter 
of fact the weather was disastrously wet, but there was no doubt that the people 
