To 
WILLIAM WATSON, ALS, FRHS., 
Curator, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 
Dear Mr. WATSON, 
The dedication to you of the last volume of the Botanical 
Magazine which I am privileged to conduct, gives me the welcome 
opportunity of expressing my sense of the value of the services which 
you have rendered to this work during your Curatorship of the Royal 
Botanic Gardens. This is due to the skill and knowledge which 
you have devoted to raising and flowering an unprecedentedly large 
proportion of the rare, interesting and beautiful plants portrayed 
in the last twenty volumes of the Magazine, and to the valuable 
information which you have so often given me of the habits, history 
and mode of culture of these and of many other species whose 
portraits accompany them. — 
In conclusion, let me congratulate you on the recognition you have 
so fairly earned as an authority on the culture of Cacti, Palms, Aloes, 
Agaves and other large groups of plants, in your study of which 
you have displayed as accurate a knowledge of their physiological 
characteristics as of their requirements under cultivation. 
Believe me, 
Very sincerely yours, 
Jos. D. HOOKER. 
THE Camp, SUNNINGDALE, 
December 1st, 1904, 
