8 ECONOMIC BOTANY AND THE NEW FLOKAS 



pondence a personal turn, covering a wider field of interests 

 than official communications. Such, for instance, was his 

 correspondence with his old friend Dr. Anderson, who took 

 charge of the Calcutta Garden in 1860, the letters amounting 

 to more than one a month for nine years. 



The Anderson letters show the exchange of plants pro- 

 ceeding and the sending of drawings, especially of Orchids, 

 to be copied at Kew ; the safe arrival of three Himalayan 

 Magnolias ; the loss of plants in transport and the fatal damage 

 to Ward's cases, especially if transhipped [' all steamships hate 

 Ward's cases,' he assures Mr. Bolus, February 24, 1868] ; the 

 superior facilities possessed by the great nurserymen for re- 

 viving and ' growing on ' the plants which reach them, so that 

 their collectors are credited with sending better materials than 

 the Gardens and their collectors : 



The real truth is, we cultivate orchids under very great 

 difficulties, and cannot hold a Dendrobe 1 to a Nurseryman. 



Since my expedition into Sikkim not one Alpine Sikkim 

 plant has been introduced. You know I dried all seeds my- 

 self and sent them off at once by post straight to England. 



We much want that class of Darjiling plants that are so 

 common and gay about the station. Do make an effort. 

 I then introduced a great many, but they have been lost 

 since. 



Further, time after time he begs that ' the plan, so success- 

 ful with me/ be adopted ' of sending a few seeds of the rarer 

 Sikkim things in letters by post at once and repeatedly,' and 

 Alpines collected * with your own hands by pinches not by 

 pecks through natives/ who cannot be trusted to see that 

 they are properly ripe and dry. For the miscellaneous collec- 

 tions of seeds come up very badly both at Kew and elsewhere. 

 If seeds from England also fail, let them be bought from 

 Vilmorin of Paris ; they will have ripened better in his southern 

 gardens. 



On the other hand he no longer wants miscellaneous collec- 

 tions of Indian plants sent for the Herbarium ; they do not 



1 The Dendrobium is a very handsome genus of orchid. 



