JOSEPH GtJRNEY FOWLER, 
211 
orchidists declares " will form the basis for other workers for all time." 
No one would have any idea of the labour and attention which went 
to the making of this book : every dot or hyphen must be exact, every 
smallest irregularity in the type must be put right ; his thoroughness 
was almost unbelievable ! 
Feeling that it was unsafe to rely entirely and solely on the memory 
of past exhibits when estimating the merits of so-called New Varieties 
brought before the Committee, he induced the Council to have coloured 
paintings made of all Orchids obtaining a First-class Certificate or 
an Award of Merit. This has proved a most beneficial step for securing 
the accuracy of Awards, and at the present moment there are 2,300 
valuable paintings from which selections are used for comparison at 
every meeting of the Committee. 
And many other things he did for the Society. The last was to 
initiate a new Gold Medal for Orchids, somewhat smaller than the 
existing one, to be called the Williams Medal ; but this, though well in 
hand, was not quite completed when he was taken from us. 
Nor must we omit to mention his work as Chairman of the Directors 
of the International Horticultural Exhibition of 1912, the success of 
which was very largely due not simply to his initiative and direction, 
but to his personal oversight and unremitting labour — work which 
" would have overtaxed the powers and outworn the patience of 
most men." 
On the death of Mr. Philip Crowley in 1899 Mr. Fowler was appointed 
» Treasurer of the Society, and a better appointment it would be difficult 
to imagine and impossible to have made. One who knew him well 
says of him : " On the subject of finance he could read through a brick 
wall. When I took him some perplexing document or deep enigma 
he would look at it for a moment, ask some question, and then give 
the solution in an astonishing, almost miraculous, manner." The 
Society owes him an endless debt of gratitude for the masterly manner 
in which he handled its finances, and for the clear and lucid style in 
which he always explained them at the annual meeting. 
This short and inadequate notice may aptly conclude with the 
personal note so felicitously struck by the Gardeners' Chronicle on 
the Saturday after Mr. Fowler's death (the extracts are almost but 
not quite verbatim).* 
In the prime of life one of the most conspicuous personalities 
in the world of horticulture and one of its truest and wisest 
friends has been taken from us. Tall and burly of figure, with 
a very deep and sonorous bass voice ; direct, and at times almost 
brusque of speech, Mr. Fowler was a tower of strength to the Society, 
and that strength was founded, as all moral strength is founded, on 
character. Direct, downright, and possessed of the simple clarity of 
mind that ever accompanies high character, he had the Englishman's 
impatience of mere words and the Englishman's love of action- 
* Gardeners' Chronicle, April 29, 1916, pi 2401 
