INTRODUCTION xix 



but a cup of delight — one that brims over and 

 whose overflow refreshes and stimulates others 

 m the pursuit of dahlias old and new, in the 

 pursuit of dahlia growing with all its attendant 

 and varied interests. The garden work that 

 flowers in writing means a permanent benefit 

 to the gardening public — and not one of our 

 fine amateurs is better qualified to discourse upon 

 the dahlia, its history, cultivation, and hybridiz- 

 ing than the author of this book. Naturally, 

 public recognition has come to Mrs. Stout in a 

 very large measure. A mention of the numbers 

 of silver cups, the medals, trophies, and ribbons 

 which her flowers have captured during the last 

 few years would sound extravagant if it were not 

 true. The money from the sale of these dahlia 

 roots and from her own lectures on the dahlia — 

 lectures with beautiful coloured slides — ^has gone 

 without exception to the support of French war 

 orphans, to the Fund for Devastated France, 

 to the Maisons Claires, and lately, some of it, to 

 a hospital in Shantung. Mrs. Stout thus re- 

 mains a consistent amateur of the dahlia, and 

 none will deny that this record glorifies even her 

 superb achievements as a hybridizer and a grower 

 of her special flower. 



How well I recall my sensation on seeing for 

 the first time one of the new dahlias, of the 



