THE BLOSSOMING OF AUTUMN. 23 



obtained by the only absolutely exact method 

 namely by the employment of photography. The 

 artist who undertook the work of filling in the 

 details of venation performed his task with ad- 

 mirable fidelity ; the lithographers coloured after 

 Nature. Actual leaves which had been carefully 

 collected by the Author with their forms and 

 colouring preserved formed the subjects for 

 draughtsman and colour-printer, and the result 

 was all that the Author could have wished in 

 fulfilment of his design. Amongst many gratify- 

 ing acknowledgments of the pleasure which this 

 species of Nature-printing gave to the readers of 

 his book, he wishes to refer to one received from 

 an Australian correspondent, who, writing from 

 Melbourne in June 1879, said, e Having just 

 finished reading " OUR WOODLAND TEEES," I feel 

 under such a strong sense of personal obligation 

 to you that I write to thank you even from this 

 distance. ... I am sure your writings, especially 

 this last work, will awaken, or rather originates a 

 new and most charming aesthetic cultus the 

 loving study of trees a subject on which there is 

 the most lamentable ignorance. It is pitiable to 



