REVIEW AND INFERENCES. 13 



ing, the calculated, the premeditated cruelty of the rich 

 reigning over and corrupting amongst us. It is glorious 

 satisfaction to know that a day of reckoning is bound 

 to come ere night settles around us.) 



Do not mind the spoiling of so much paper through 

 relating of personal grievances. But I have wo*rked 

 with hundreds of my acquaintances in rank and file, 

 and to them I owe an explanation how the quiet scient- 

 ist of their knowledge has developed into a politician 

 after disappearing for so long a time, as if swallowed 

 by an abyss. If I still cling to the plan of this my 

 orchid hybrid list through all these trials, forgive me if 

 I maintain that my effort was not a small one. 



Reason for Writing this Book. 



That the interest in orchids is general and on the 

 increase was already manifest ten years ago, and it is 

 more than ever so this very day. I do not like to call 

 this state a sport, a fashion. No, I see in the increase 

 of the interest taken in orchids a higher standard of 

 taste and judgment of the plant-loving world. There 

 are a large number of species of plants from all regions 

 of the globe in cultivation which have quite as peculiar 

 a way of growing as our orchids, though perhaps for 

 them as a genus we claim a more general interest in 

 their oddity, but I have found the most just solution for 

 this problem in the character of the orchid flower. My 

 ideas upon that subject were put into words ten years 

 ago, and as I was then more direct under the influence 

 of observing these plants and their flowers, I do not 

 like to rewrite my words from those days but give at 

 another place in translation what belongs more cor- 

 rectly here. 



