PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
XV 
compare with the rhododendron show there, where light, foliage, and earth com¬ 
bine to help it out. 
Second.—Observing the show of to-day, we see the foliage plants’separated 
from the flowers on the opposite side of the room. If these had formed a back 
ground for the others, how much would have been done by that simple expe¬ 
dient. Then, again, harmony of colour can be considered even though the plants 
are still kept in collections for the judges. 
Third.—As nature provides turf, and shows fruit and flowers so much better 
on it, why should we not, as may be seen in Continental displays, grow turf in 
boxes, or cut it and bring it up. These boxes could be slanted any way or 
raised perpendicularly like banks. Or we might put the fruit on the turf or 
grass grown in these boxes. 
Another beautiful element for flower-showing is white paper, in which many 
foreign markets display their plants and cut flowers. It is the same in effect as, 
the brilliant white mounts we use for water-colour drawings. 
In Italy they have a beautiful method, once well seen by the speaker in the 
Monastery in the Apennines, where a Monk chalked out a carpet or mosaic, 
laid buds of box on the chalk to make green lines of demarcation, and filled, 
the spaces with petals of blue, red, and other wild flowers brought in by 
children in basketsful. This might not always be possible or easy. It might, 
too, be too much for the main object of the show. But to some extent or other 
it could be adopted. We have in our own gardens something similar in bright' 
sands and gravel; why not utilise such a system? 
Of the advisability of keeping many plants and even fruits below rather than 
on the level with the eye, something was to be said. No doubt, many such 
objects looked their best from above, and were more agreeably seen in that 
position. innigoj orfi to ysM 1< 
It was not, however, the speaker's object to do more than offer suggestions 
and provoke discussion. 
As to admitting that English growers and gardeners were inferior to fo¬ 
reigners, that was all nonsense. The English gardener has better turf, and. is 
second to no one in skill and inventiveness, and all that was needed was to; call' 
attention to a real want, and to devise means, without interfering with the real 
requirements of a show, for making it as ■attractive- as- those necessary require¬ 
ments would admit. 
The Rev. Canon Rock arid Mr. Wilson Saunders also made some remarks 
on the subject;. ■ • <■ j 
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, 
Tuesday, Feb. 13, 1866. 
His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch in the Chair. 
The minutes of the last meeting; having been .read and signed, Messrs., 
Eortune and Booth were appointed scrutineers. 
The Secretary (Mr. Wilson Saunders) then read the following Report:— 
Report of the Council to the General Meeting, 
February 13, 1866. 
1. In accordance with the announcement made at the last annual meeting 
of the Society, the accounts annexed are laid before the Fellows this year so 
as to show in a simple form the financial results of the year’s working. A full 
statement of the Society's accounts has also been printed, as directed by the 
charter, and copies can be had on application at the offices at S. Kensington. 
2. The Council have the satisfaction of announcing to the Society that the 
number of its Fellows continues to increase, and that the amount of their 
subscriptions, which form the least fluctuating of its sources of income, 
has risen in a higher ratio than the increase in its members. The number 
of Fellows on the books on the 1st of January 1866 is nine more than it was 
on the 1st of January of last year ; but the subscriptions for 1865 exceed those 
