xcv 
Appendix A . 
succeeded in training a lad of remarkable promise as a botanical 
artist. This was the late Walter Fitch, F.L.S. \ who executed 
about sixteen hundred plates for the * Botanical Magazine ’ alone. 
Great improvements in the work were introduced by the new 
Editor, such as giving for the first time analyses of the plants, and 
by figuring species of economic interest, from specimens grown 
in England, or from drawings sent by foreign correspondents. 
At this time too the cultivation of Orchids was becoming a 
passion, and for twelve succeeding years Curtis’s Magazine 
rivalled Edward’s ‘ Botanical Register * (conducted latterly by 
Dr. Lindley) as an organ for depicting and describing them. 
In 1847 the Register came to an end deservedly regretted by 
all botanists and horticulturalists, and the Magazine soon after 
had outlived all its ten competitors of 1827. Another novelty 
introduced into it was the dedication of the successive annual 
volumes to individuals who had conspicuously advanced the study 
of botany or horticulture, and especially such as had contributed 
materials for the work. For the first person thus to be immor- 
talized, the Editor had the satisfaction of selecting his early 
friend, Robert Barclay, Esq., of Bury Hill, one of the founders 
alike of the Magazine and of the great brewery. In the end my 
father produced thirty-eight volumes of the Magazine, with about 
2,860 plates and descriptions. 
In 1833, on the completion of the first series of the Magazine 
(vols. i-liii), the proprietor, S. Curtis, commenced the publication 
of a new edition, with amended characters of the species, the 
whole arranged according to the Natural Orders by W. J. 
Hooker ; to which is added ‘ the most approved method of culture,’ 
by S. Curtis. The work did not advance beyond the first 
volume, with 1 19 plates. In the Preface the proprietor announces 
that it was designed to ‘ afford an unprecedented opportunity for 
illustrating the Natural Orders of plants, by exhibiting nearly 
2,800 figures, arranged according to that method/ An inspection 
of this fragment of the intended work shows that its discontinu- 
ance is regrettable. 
The succeeding proprietor, Mr. Lovel Reeve, commenced in 
1846 the issue of a work with the title ‘ A Century of Orchidaceous 
1 See footnote to p. xl. 
