BOUDIER'S PLATES. 



The following extract is from a letter from Prof. Geo. F. Atkin- 

 son. It is in keeping with our feeling that Boudier's are the most 

 perfect plates that have been ever issued. 



"I presume you know that the Library at Cornell at my instigation has 

 been from the first a subscriber to Boudier's Plates for a complete set. When I 

 was in Paris in 1903 I spent half a day looking through Boudier's original illus- 

 trations with him. I recognized in them at that time the finest illustrations of 

 this character which I had ever seen. Added to Mr. Boudier's talent as an art- 

 ist, we have the work of a very careful scientific man in connection with accu- 

 rate mechanical work in measuring and obtaining the exact proportions of the 

 different parts of the plant. At that time he told me his method was to obtain 

 absolute accuracy of form and proportions. 1 regard them as the finest set of 

 Mycological plates which have ever been published." 



I also have a letter from Professor Peck on the same subject. 



"Boudier's plates seem to me to be about as near perfection as wo run 

 hope to get at present. Only a single weak point has suggested itself to me 

 and that is in the failure to show the color of the young gills in the few species 

 of Cortinarius figured. I suspect that you yourself, who have so valiantly 

 championed photographic illustrations of fungi, will acknowledge that these 

 figures are better than photographs." 



I have no hesitation whatever in stating that such pluu- as 

 Boudier has issued are vastly superior to any photographs that could 

 be produced. If the quality of mycological plates was up to the stand- 

 ard of Boudier no criticism could be offered as to this method of 

 illustration. Unfortunately, however, the great majority of plates of 

 agarics that have been issued are so poor that they do not at all repre- 

 sent the plants. And all that I maintain about photographic illustra- 

 tions is that a good photograph is vastly superior to a poor drawing, 

 and that a large part of the colored plates are very paor. 



Professor Morgan writes: 



"These plates are the ideal of perfection. They are models for work in 

 illustration both artistic and scientific." 



Professor H. C. Beardslee writes : 



"Boudier's plates are certainly fine, and it makes one feel that good work 

 is really worth while. I felt more like careful work after I had looked over 

 them. 



Professor W. A. Kellerman writes: 



"I had thought you praised Boudier's plates too highly, but I see now vou 

 did not commit any extravagance." 



The library or individual who is interested in this line of work j 

 and who can afford it, and does not subscribe for Boudier's plates as \ 

 they are issued is making a mistake. But a few years will pass I think 

 until these plates will become as rare and as high priced in the book 

 market as Sibthorp's "Flora of Greece." 



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