42 ORCHID HYBRIDS. 



bidden the use of a pen to write up your experience 

 under the ban of digrace at the time that you were 

 ruined for anything but the lingering of a collector's 

 death. I have not sniffed where I had no business to, 

 though I do not claim to be listed a colonel for the legion 

 of the goody good. But if things are dumped before 

 your eyes, if facts are thrust under your nose, where is 

 the man that does not notice them? And aside from 

 that, a personal grievance served to sharpen the scent 

 to detect the direction whence a stab towards my back 

 was aimed from. 



Enough, de mortuis nihil nisi veritas, and for that 

 matter about the living likewise. It is a good thing 

 that we are not to be forgotten altogether. The 

 consecrator of the baptism of Dendrobium Guilelmi 

 secundi is inheriting some of the traits of scientific 

 smartness impaired through the death of past celebrities, 

 and if we remember how a Reichenbach had to stand 

 attack and criticism ere he found recognition, we will 

 (some of these dark days) rank equally the spooking 

 pranks of the orchid-sage of Heidelberg whose tomfool- 

 eries exuberate with the bouquet of Heidelberg's Big 

 Barrel. To disseminate his teachings, would be an 

 insult to the intelligence of our age. Unmentioned be 

 their names. Of all of them I write like H. G. Rchb. 

 fil., " t. m. t." " s. b. m." to my taste, send better ma- 

 terial. 



It is a pleasure to turn from these types to whom I 

 am under obligation for having shown me how not to 

 proceed when devoting myself to the study of orchids, 

 to the epoch beginning with the publication of the Qr- 

 chid Review. I felt sorry at the time of its issue to deem 

 that there should have been a disagreement between the 

 standard publication of horticulture, the Gardeners' 



