444 
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
suggest that, while we have fully maintained the reputation this 
country deservedly enjoys for its magnificent gardens and the 
skill of its gardeners, the advance in many of the departments 
has not been so rapid as would have been the case had full 
advantage been taken of the opportunities we have had for the 
acquisition and dissemination of definite information on doubtful 
points of practice. 
Let me not be understood as discounting the value of what 
is popularly known as “ practical knowledge.” So far from my 
doing this, I have consistently kept to the front the necessity of 
a practical acquaintance with the details of the art, when dis¬ 
cussing the question of the training essential to success in garden 
management. But I differ from the general body of horti¬ 
culturists in my interpretation of the term “practical” in its 
relation to the garden. While not a few regard it as essentially 
practical to learn by a process of imitation, I consider the most 
practical cultivator to be he who happily combines science with 
practice, and thereby places himself in a position to take the 
fullest possible advantage of the conditions that obtain where 
he pursues his avocations. Much misapprehension with regard 
to this matter has undoubtedly arisen in some quarters through' 
confusing science with speculation; and to avoid labouring this 
point I will at once say that if we accept the definition that 
science is knowledge amassed, severely tested, coordinated, and 
systematised, as correct, we shall at once see that scientific 
inquiries, or in other words experimental work, should be 
warmly encouraged and widely extended. 
There is, in fact, nothing more truly practical in the whole 
routine of the garden than the determination, by carefully con¬ 
ducted experiments, of the relative merits of varieties, the 
usefulness of the various fertilisers for the several crops, and the 
most efficient insecticides and fungicides. 
It might, of course, be said that every garden is an experi¬ 
mental station wherein trials are continuously in progress, and 
this to some extent would be true. The lessons that have been 
obtained from the innumerable gardens in the United Kingdom 
have been of much value, as proved by the fact that horticulture 
has attained so high a position with but little assistance from 
properly equipped stations. But there can be no question that 
experimental horticulture should be placed on a more satisfactory 
