Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/131

 had considerable experience as an amateur horticulturist Mr. Hume ultimately allotted to my use a considerable por- tion of the garden attached to his residence. Seeds were obtained from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and from similar establishments in France and Austria, and the growing of alien plants for preservation as botanical specimens became a portion of my work, in which Mr. Hume took a deep interest. He delighted in showing these alien plants to his friends and in telling them where the species had been found in a quasi-wild state in Britain.

"At the end of April 190T, Mr. Hume went to Cornwall to continue the collecting of Cornish plants which he had commenced the previous year, and he remained there until October. He made a large collection that year, frequently being assisted by Mr. F. H. Davey, F.L.S., the author of a most excellent flora of Cornwall published in 1909. From May to September 1902 Mr. Hume collected on Dartmoor and the neighbouring parts of Devon, and through October in North Cornwall. In May 1903 he went to Upper Teesdale, Yorkshire, and remained there collecting until October, working during a small portion of the time with Mr. H. W. Pugsley, F.L.S., and Mr. H. S. Thompson, F.L.S. In 1903 Mr. B. T. Lowne, my co- secretary of the Catford and District Natural History Society, exhibited at the Congress of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies some mounted plants, and upon the same sheet with each flowering specimen was a seedling of the species.

"During the congress Miss Ethel Sargent, F.L.S., a well- known experimental botanist, made public reference to the few mounted seedlings, and said that if any botanist would take the trouble to grow and preserve at different stages a comprehensive collection of seedlings it would be invaluable for reference. I submitted the suggestion to