[illeg.] 1902
THE CAMP. SUNNINGDALE.
My dear Prain I should earlier have acknowledged the receipt of the munificent supply of cigars, which I received a fortnight ago, & I thank you heartily for your kindly having procured & forwarded them. They are excellent. The sketch of my father's life & work has kept me very busy for many months. It is now, all but completed, & in Balfour´s*1 hands. It has been a very difficult task, & I am in great doubts -- about its reception, especially of the appendices on his labour, & an attempt to classify the principal articles (with the exception of the purely[?]

systematic, which have been embodied in recent works[?].). This includes notices & reviews of innumerable works, the letters from travellers &collectors, & the innumerable articles upon economic plants, obituary éloges*2, & the likes. The titles of the several journals are confusing, & the indices to the volumes with 2 or 3 exceptions all but useless. The Editorship of the unexampled[?] amounts of botanical matter that he accumulated would have taxed the time & brains of half a dozen Eh Editors, & he conducted it without even a secretary! His only object being the advance of Botanical knowledge. A more disinterested man never lived. It is to come out with the new year, as a part of the Annals. I have been three times, page by page, through all the journals,

checking my references, & shall recheck them all in proof. King*3 has shown me your sheets of the Bengal flora, & I am delighted to see them. I have but one observation to make;-- I should have put a star to the introduced species, or used a different type for them. I hear nothing of the my sketch of the Flora of India being printed. King has gone over it with me, & is I think satisfied. Soon I hope to be again at Impatiens but I must first get ahead with Bot. Mag., which “drags a lengthening chain" & with the abnormal increase of botanical publications, especially transactions & Journals from all parts of the world, makes the determination of species more & more laborious. There ought to be some check to this issue of new periodicals, many of which are padded, for want of better material, with crude[?] matter.

Is it possible for me to procure covers for the Vol. viii of the Annals. I received all the letter press & plates before the issue of the volumes -- that is without the covers. If there is the smallest difficulty please say so. Lady Hooker had good news of Mrs Prain the other day, & she desires[?] her best regards[.] Ever sincerely yours | Jos.D Hooker [signature] King is well & hard at work; he tells me of the Gov[ernmen]ts arrangement for the promotion of Economic Work! It is absurd, & it must be quietly[?] met by a determination to ignore its provisions, & meet to do nothing[?]. It is a case of red tape "in Excelsis".