INTRODUCTION 



PARTLY because of a long-established belief 

 in the value of the study of special flower groups, 

 I am happy to see appearing this volume on the 

 dahlia; on that flower which has certain qualities 

 pertaining to no other, and a glory of form, 

 habit, and colour all its own. I believe in special 

 plant societies. Study, research, and experience 

 under such auspices spread knowledge accurately 

 and widely with the result that fine plant sub- 

 jects reach the average amateur with a prompt- 

 ness otherwise impossible. 



Notable achievement in America in the way 

 of hybridizing by amateurs is rather rare. We 

 find few men and women, not in commercial 

 growing, who care to give their time and patience 

 to such work as this. It is, therefore, all the 

 more remarkable that Mrs. Stout should have 

 spent already ten or twelve years in her occupa- 

 tion with the dahlia. I well remember seeing 

 for the first time some of her noble flowers, Sun- 

 shine, Emily D. Renwick, Gertrude Dahl, and J. 

 Harrison Dick, a dahlia named by the Ameri- 



XVll 



