e
committee meeting of international level, at London in November 1951.
As a result, the present Code is the first truly international
regulating guide that has been produced as an aid to persons concerned
with the nomenclature of cultivated plants. The individual who may
object to some provision of the Code must remember that its presence in
the Code has had the support of scores of specialists, representing no
less than 16 nations and that there is no part of the Code that was not
acceptable to a majority of the delegates of each nation and to the
groups representing them. The significance of this international
character of the Code is not to be discounted.

It is only proper at this point to tell you how the U. S. A. was
represented at the International Horticultural Congress in London.
Practically every country except the United States has a national
horticultural organization, comparable in some respects to the Royal
Horticultural Society, with which you are surely familiar. This country
had none. When the "call" went out for representatives and delegates to
the International Horticultural Congress, that for this country was
delivered to the agricultural attache at our Embassy in London. It is
reported that he referred it to his home office and attended some
preliminary meetings in London. The matter was referred to the U. S.
Department of Agriculture in Washington and there sat, apparently, for
months. In the interim, private communications were flying across the
Atlantic in both directions between interested horticulturists and
finally the matter was referred by the Honorable Secretary of the
Congress direct to American societies of horticulture to ensure that
American views and interests would be adequately represented. It boiled
down to the United States being represented by those persons who were
going to be at the Congress anyway and by men who were not specialists
in nomenclatural matters. Appraised of their lot, these persons made
every effort to be briefed and informed on as many aspects of the
provisions of the proposed Code as possible. As stated later by Dr. S.
L. Emsweller (a member of the committee, representing U. S. D. A. and
the American Society for Horticultural Science), this situation brought
into sharp focus the need in this country for a single horticultural
organization of organizations that could serve as authorized in matters
at the international level. The American Horticultural Council, t