In 1896 I brought out a little book, “The Bamboo Garden,” which was very well received, though naturally it appealed only to a very limited public. Besides a few indulgent friends, it could only interest those who possess gardens of sufficient importance to enable them to grow the plants of which it treats. If I remember right the first account handed in by the publishers showed a deficit which had to be wiped out by a considerable cheque. In time the edition became exhausted and the book is now out of print, so I suppose that in the long run I was no great loser. However, it brought me one triumph which was worth more than money. If anybody had told me beforehand that I should be mentioned in Sir Joseph Hooker’s great work, “The Flora of British India,” I should have deemed it as improbable as that I should be made a Knight of the Garter. But wonderful as it is to me, there I am! My pride may be forgiven if I copy what the great man said. After some preliminary remarks about the Arundinaria tribe, he writes: “Since the above was written, Mr. Freeman-Mitford’s ‘The Bamboo Garden’ has appeared, a work replete with valuable observations upon the habits, mode of growth, and other characters of the hardy species of bamboo, including five Indian, cultivated by him. In it is pointed out (see ‘Arundinaria Simoni,’ p. 60) for the first time the true characters of the two types of sheath and blade that occur in bamboos, and which do not, so far as I know, in any other tribe of grasses. In a communication which Mr. Mitford has been good enough to make to me on this subject, he has formulated his views as follows, and has kindly allowed me to introduce them here.” Then follows a technical paper by me for which there is no place here. Was I not justified in feeling proud? The Secretaryship of the Office of Works brought me into relations with many of the princes of science, among them there was none who inspired me with more respect than Sir Joseph Hooker; indeed, for various reasons we were brought together so closely that what began as a very pleasant friendship warmed into an affection which only ceased with his life. He retired from his official position at Kew in 1885, and from that time till his death, in 1911, we remained in intimate correspondence. He was delightful in conversation. He had done so much and seen so much from the time when he qualified as a surgeon in order to accompany Sir James Ross as botanist in the _Erebus_ on the Antarctic Expedition of 1839. He had known practically all the eminent men of science of Europe and America, and was himself the last survivor of the mighty triumvirate, Darwin, Hooker, Huxley, whom I also knew as a most charming personality.