46 ORCHID HYBRIDS. 



any chronic harm. I promise to continue my work 

 with every information which reaches me. Will you 

 help me ? yourself? Consider that every knowledge you 

 may be good enough to place at my disposal is so much 

 gained towards perfecting our efforts at clearness and 

 progress! Let me learn, if you please, what you have 

 raised. If my data are wrong, inform me, and we all, 

 who are interested in this work, will thank you. Do 

 not mind telling about any cross you may have raised, 

 even if perfected three, four and ten times before you. 

 It is interesting to know how often a hybrid has been 

 grown, and entertaining to find out how many of those 

 seedlings have been sent out, from how many sources 

 our stock has gone forth. Every New Year shall bring 

 you a new installment of my work. Have your book 

 bound so as to enfold a narrow strip of paper between 

 every page of the list, and my annual supplements will 

 be arranged to admit cutting into strips and pasting to 

 these leaflets. The print of them will be on one side of 

 the paper only, and thus provided for your book will not 

 bulge in its binding.* 



I do not want to beg; but if you are ready to receive a 

 plea for assistance, for recognition of honest services 

 rendered, look at the concluding of this reading matter 

 back to the page where I introduced my book with 

 the sigh " After All." There is no more condemnable 

 course resting upon this our fair world as alms. If we, 

 all of us, were practicing justice, and employing what 

 fate placed in our trust for the short span of our lives, 

 we all would have a chance to live and walk upright. I 

 live, but I do not walk upright. I think upright, I 

 preach upright, and bitterness of experience is the salt 

 of my sermon. You who rest their eyes upon orchids, 



* Supplement from April 1, 1895, to July 1, 1895, at end of book. 



