DEDICATION. 



MAXWELL T. MASTERS, M. D.; F. R. S.; F. L. S.; 



EALING, London. 

 My Dear Sir, 



Just ten years have passed since the day that you laid 

 your hand upon my shoulder and lead the way to the 

 room where the Scientific Committee of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society in S6uth Kensington met. Just ten 

 years. It is Sunday to-day. I look from my desk over 

 the snowcapped peaks of the Sierras in the direction of 

 the land where you reside. Quietness reigns around 

 me. There is not a soul near but my dear wife under- 

 neath the window, busy trimming dying branches out 

 of her flower bushes. The sun is setting beyond over 

 the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles away, but still to 

 be recognized from my lofty Alp. I come to you. I 

 hear the bells ring as of yore, when I first caught sight 

 of your fair land. I was coming up the Thames on that 

 Sunday morn after I bid farwell to my native land. 

 Dear Sir, lay again your hand upon my shoulder and 

 press my right with the other as you did when first we 

 met. I breathed the air of this grandest of all churches 

 with its high, azure dome, and still fresh with this air, 

 still reverend with the impression of my mountain 

 home, I come to you with a gift, praying for its accept- 

 ance. 



See here this book: A list of Orchid Hybrids, com- 

 plete and classified. Do not use the few moments of 

 our meeting with its perusal, but let me say a few words 

 with my gift. My book has two qualities: copiousness 



