lishment of the society until he should have returned from his travels[1].
When Hügel, after six years' wanderings, came home to Vienna, there was much work awaiting him and he was overwhelmed with business. Nevertheless, he quickly and energetically took in hand the establishment of the Horticultural Society. The minutes of the preliminary meetings, drawn up by himself, are preserved in the archives of the society. I have had an opportunity of examining these, and of thus noting his skill in giving always the best and most profitable turn to these discussions, in which, besides the above mentioned signatories, Prince Adolf Schwartzenberg, Count Johann Keglewick, and Baron Louis Pereira took part. Hügel was elected the first President of the newly-established k. k. Gartenbaugesellschaft, and, as long as he lived in Vienna, that is to say, till the year 1848, he continued to hold this dignity. The society throve under his guidance: he not only shaped its future by his personal exertions, but also knew how to enlist supporters of exceptional force. Thus, for example, he succeeded in persuading Stephan Endlicher, the most celebrated botanist then working in Vienna, to accept the secretaryship of the society. After Hügel's retirement from its leadership the Horticultural Society declined materially both as to work and in its reputation, until, in 1861, it took a new flight under the presidency of Count Franz Ernst Harrach. A study of Hügel’s activity in furthering the growth of the Horticultural Society would necessarily lie beyond the limits of this commemorative speech. I will only point out that his services to the society were so greatly valued that, though the thought of founding the society proceeded from an enlightened Prince
- ↑ Fenzl: Darstellung d. Entstehens u. Wirkens d. k. k. Gartenbaugesellschaft.
