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What remains of the earthworks show that it must have been a 
fortification of considerable strength. 
The flora of the forest is not rich, owing to the poverty 
of the gravel soil; the hornbeam which forms so large 4 
part of the timber is no doubt indigenous. You will have observed 
how they are all pollarded trees. Before the forest came under 
the protection of the Corporation of London, there were yearly 
forest sales by auction of “the lop and top”; the young wood 
was cut down over large areas every 10 years or so, and sold as 
faggots, poles, or peasticks, and for a long time after this cutting 
the shorn trunks presented a dismal appearance. They were 
crowded together to induce the young branches to grow u 
straight and close, and consequently become more marketable 
When the verderers took them in hand and the “ lop and top” 
was stopped, hundreds of the old hornbeams were thinned out, 
and a foolish cry was raised at the time that the forest was being 
destroyed; but it was a wise and necessary work, and every 
year the beauty of the forest is increased as the trees left have 
had room to grow, and it probably never presented such charm- 
ing woodland scenery as it does at the present day. 
Turning now to the real business of our Society, we are much 
indebted to those of our members who have worked hard in the 
held, both here and on the Continent in studying the varied 
aspects that many species of fungi present, and in taking in 
hand the difficult work of suppressing unnecessary names. | 
cannot but think that much remains to be done in this direction ; 
the puzzling variation in appearance caused by differences of 
temperature and by the influence of wet or dry seasons in these 
fleeting growths make great knowledge and judgment requisite 
in defining the limits of species with accuracy. 
It is however in the microscopic investigation of fungi that 
such invaluable work has been done of late years, especially in 
its bearing on agriculture. I need not go further than refer 
to the extremely interesting presidential address of Mr. Baffin, 
to which we listened at Haslemere, in which he described the 
methods pursued for combating the parasitic fungi in cereals. 
This is practical work which may lead to results of incalculable 
value. 
I cannot pretend to bring before you anything of such 
interest ; indeed the only reason for my being placed in the 
honorable position I now hold was that I had done something 1 
the study of Mycetozoa, Myxomycetes, Myxogastres, or slime 
moulds, as different writers have called them—a very doubtful 
qualification one might say, for Zoologists, contend that we 
should not include these organisms in the Vegetable Kingdom, 
but class them with the Protozoa. Iam not prepared to dispute 
the point ; they appear to stand in the border land between the 
