 Chapter 1, Section 1 of About Orchids a Chat The purport of this book is shown in the letter following, which I addressed to the editor of the Daily News some months ago. I thank you for reminding your readers, by reference to my humble work, that the delight of growing orchids can be enjoyed by persons of very modest fortune. To spread that knowledge is my contribution to philanthropy, and I make bolds to say that it ranks as high as some which are commended from pulpits and platforms. For your leader-writer is inexact, though complimentary, in assuming that any special genius enables me to cultivate orchids without more expense than other greenhouse plants entail, or even without a gardener. I am happy to know that scores of worthy gentlemen, ladies too, not more gifted than their neighbours in any sense, find no greater difficulty. If the pleasure of one of these be due to any writings of mine, I have wrought some good in my generation. With the same hope I have collected those writings dispersed and buried more or less in periodicals. The articles in this volume are collected, with permission which I gratefully acknowledge from the Standard, Saturday Review, St James's Gazette, National Review, and Longman's magazine. With some pride I discover on reading them again that hardly a statement needs correction, for they contain many statements, and some were published years ago. But in this, as in other lore, a student still gathers facts. The essays have been brought up to date by additions in a special let-upon hybridising, a theme which has not interested the great public his or to, simply because the great public knows nothing about it. There is not, in fact, so far as I am aware, any general record of the amazing and delightful achievements which have been made therein of late years. It does not fall within my province to frame such a record, but at least any person who reads this unscientific account, not daunted by the title, will understand the fascination of the study. These essays profess to be no more than chat of a literary man about orchids. They contain a multitude of facts told in some detail where such attention seems necessary, which can only be found elsewhere in boldest outline, if found at all. Everything that relates to orchids has a charm for me, and I have learnt to hold it as an article of faith that pursuits which interest one member of the cultured public will interest all, if displayed clearly and pleasantly in a form to catch attention at the outset. Savants and professionals have kept the delights of orchidology to themselves as yet. They smother them in scientific treatises or commit them to dry earth burial in gardening books. Very few outsiders suspect that any amusement could be found therein. The illustrations are environed by mystery, pierced now and again by a brief announcement that something with an incredible name has been sold for a fabulous number of guineas, which passing glimpse into an unknown world makes it more legendary than before. It is high time such noxious superstitions were dispersed. Surely I think this volume will do the good work, if the public will read it. The illustrations are reduced from those delightful drawings by Mr. Moon, admired throughout the world in the pages of Reichenbachia. The license to use them is one of many favours for which I am indebted to the proprietors of that stately work. I do not give detailed instructions for culture. No one could be more firmly convinced that a treatise on that subject is needed, for no one assuredly has learned, by more varied and disastrous experience, to see the omissions of the textbooks. They are written for the initiated, so designed for the amateur. Naturally, it is so. A man who has been brought up to business can hardly resume the utter ignorance of the neophyte. Unconsciously he will take a certain degree of knowledge for granted, and he will neglect to enforce those elementary principles which are most important of all. Nor is the writer of a gardening book accustomed as a rule to marshal his facts in due order, to keep proportion, to assure himself that his directions will be exactly understood by those who know nothing. The brief hints in Reichenbachia are admirable, but one does not cheerfully refer to an authority in folio. Monsieur Vichy's Manual of Orchidacious Plants is a model of lucidity and a mine of information. Repeated editions of Monsieur B. S. Williams' Orchid Gros' Manual have proved its merit, and upon the whole I have no hesitation in declaring that this is the most useful work which has come under my notice, but they are all adapted for those who have passed the elementary stage. Thus, if I have introduced few remarks on culture, it is not because I think them needless. The reason may be frankly confessed. I am not sure that my time would be duly paid. If this little book should reach a second edition, I will resume once more the ignorance that was mine eight years ago, and as a fellow novice tell the unskilled amateur how to grow orchids. Frederick Boyle, North Lodge, Addiscombe, 1893 About Orchids Chapter 1, My Gardening Section 1 The contents of my bungalow gave material for some legends which perhaps are not yet universally forgotten. I have added few curiosities to the list since that work was published. My days of travel seem to be over, but in quitting that happiest way of life, not willingly, I have had the luck to find another occupation, not less interesting, and better suited to grey hairs and stiffened limbs. This volume deals with the appurtenances of my bungalow, as one may say, the orchid houses. But a man who has almost forgotten what little knowledge he gathered in youth about English plants does not readily turn to that higher branch of horticulture, more ignorant even than others. He will cherish all the superstitions and illusions which environ the orchid family. Enlightenment is a slow process, and he will make many experiences before perceiving his true bent. How I came to grow orchids will be told in this first article. The ground at my disposal is a quarter of an acre. From that tiny area deducts the space occupied by my house, and it will be seen that myriads of good people dwelling in the suburbs, whose garden to put it courteously is not sung by poets, have as much land as I. The aspect is due north, a grave disadvantage. Upon that side, from the house wall to the fence, I have forty-five feet, on the east fifty feet, on the south sixty feet, on the west a mere gruel. Almost every one who works out these figures will laugh, and the remainder sneer. Here is a garden to write about. This area might do for a tennis court, or for a general meeting of Mr. Frederick Harrison's persuasion. You might kennel a pack of hounds there, or beat a carpet, or assemble those members of the cultured class who admire Mr. Gladstone. But grow flowers, roses, to cut by the basketful, fruit to make jam for a jam-eating household the year round, mushrooms, tomatoes, water lilies, orchids. Those Indian jugglers who bring a mango-tree to perfection on your verandah in twenty minutes might be able to do it, but not a consistent Christian. Nevertheless I affirm that I have done all these things, and I shall even venture to make other demands upon the public credulity. When I first surveyed my garden sixteen years ago, a big compressus stood before the front door in a vast round bed, one half of which would yield no flowers at all, and the other half only spindlings. This was encircled by a carriage-drive. A close row of limes, supported by more compressus, overhung the palings all round. A dense little shrubbery hid the back door. A weeping ash, already tall and handsome, stood to eastward. Curiously green and snug was the scene under these conditions. Rather like a forest glade, but if the space available be considered, and allowance be made for the shadow of all those trees, any Tyro can calculate the room left for grass and flowers, and the miserable appearance of both. Beyond that dense little shrubbery the soil was occupied with potatoes mostly, and a big enclosure for hens. First I dug up the fine compressus. They told me such a big tree could not possibly move, but it did, and it now fills an out-of-the-way place as usefully as all mentally. I suppressed the carriage-drive, making a straight path, broad enough for pedestrians only, and cut down a number of the trees. The blessed sunlight recognized my garden once more. Then I rooted out the shrubbery, did away with the foul house, using its materials to build two little sheds against the back fence. Dug up the potato garden, made tabula rasa, in fact, dismissed my labourers and considered. I meant to be my own gardener, but already, sixteen years ago, I had a dislike of stooping. To kneel was almost as wearisome, therefore I adopted the system of raised beds. Common enough. Returning home, however, after a year's absence, I found my oak posts decaying, unseasoned doubtless when put in. To prevent trouble of this sort in future I substituted drainpipes set on end. The first of those ideas which have won commendation from great authorities, drainpipes do not encourage insects. Filled with earth, each bears a showy plant, labelia, pyrethrum, saxifrage, or what not, with the utmost neateness, making a border, and they last eternally. But there was still much stooping, of course, whilst I became more impatient of it. One day a remedy flashed through my mind, that happy thought which became the essence or principle of my gardening, and makes this account thereof worth attention perhaps. Why not raise to a comfortable level all parts of the area over which I had need to bend, though no horticulturist perhaps ever had such a thought before, expense was the sole objection visible. Called away just then for another long absence, I gave orders that no dust should leave the house, and found a monstrous heap on my return. The road contractors supplied sweepings at a shilling aload. Beginning at the outskirts of my property, I raised a mound three feet high and three feet broad, replanted the shrubs on the back edge, and left a handsome border for flowers. So well this succeeded, so admirably every plant throve in that compost, naturally drained and lifted to the sunlight, that I enlarged my views. The soil is gravel, peculiarly bad for roses, and at no distant day my garden was a swamp, not uncronicaled had we room to dwell on such matters. The bit of lawn looked decent only at mid-summer. I first tackled the rose-question. The bushes and standards, such as they were, faced south, of course, that is, behind the house. A line of fruit trees there began to shade them grievously. Experts assured me that if I raised a bank against these, of such a height as I proposed, they would surely die. I paid no attention to the experts, nor did my fruit trees. The mound raised is, in fact, a crescent on the inner edge, thirty feet broad, seventy feet between the horns, square at the back, behind the fruit trees. A walk runs there, between it and the fence, and in the narrow space on either hand I grow such herbs as one cannot easily buy, chervil, chives, tarragon. Also I have beds of celeriac, and cold frames which yield a few cucumbers in the summer, when emptied of plants. Not one inch of ground is lost in my garden. The roses occupy this crescent. After sinking to its utmost now, the bank stands two feet six inches above the gravel path. At that elevation they defied the shadow for years, and for the most part they will continue to do so, as long as I feel any interest in their well-being. But there is a space, the least important, fortunately, where the shade, growing year by year, has got the mastery. That space I have surrendered, frankly, covering it over with the charming saxophrage, yes, hypnoides, through which, in spring, push bluebells, primroses, and miscellaneous bulbs, while the exquisite green carpet frames pots of scarlet geranium, and such bright flowers, movable at will. That saxophrage indeed is one of my happiest devices. Finding that grass would not thrive upon the steep bank of my mounds, I dotted them over with tufts of it, which have spread, until at this time they are clothed in vivid green, the year round, and white as an untouched snowdrift in spring. Thus also the foot-wide paths of my rose beds are edged, and a neater or a lovely aborder could not be imagined. With such a tiny space of ground the choice of roses is very important. Hybrids take up too much room for general service. One must have a few for colour, but the mass should be teas, noisettes, and above all, Bengals. This day, the second week in October, I can pick fifty roses, and I expect to do so every morning, till the end of the month, in a sunny autumn. They will be mostly Bengals, but there are two exquisite varieties sold by Monsieur Paul. I forget which of them, nearly as free-flowering. These are Camoan and Madjay Messymi. They have a tint unlike any other rose. They grow strongly for their class, and the bloom is singularly graceful. The tiny but vexatious lawn was next attacked. I stripped off the turf, planted drainpipes along the gravel walk, filled in with road-sweepings to the level of their tops, and relayed the turf. It is now a little picture of a lawn. Each drainpipe was planted with a cutting of ivy, which now form a beautiful evergreen roll beside the path. Thus, as you walk in my garden, everywhere the ground is more or less above its natural level, raised so high here and there that you cannot look over the plants which crown the summit. Any gardener, at least, will understand how luxuriously everything grows and flowers under such conditions. Enthusiastic visitors declare that I have scenery and picturesque effects, and delightful surprises in my quarter-acre of ground. Certainly I have flowers almost enough, and fruit, and perfect seclusion also. Though there are houses all round within a few yards, you catch butter-glimps of them at certain points, while the trees are still clothed. Those mounds are all a secret. End of Chapter 1, Section 1. Chapter 1, Sections 2 and 3 of About Orchids, A Chat. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Peter Yersley. About Orchids, A Chat, by Frederick Boyle. Chapter 1, My Gardening, Section 2. I was my own gardener, and sixteen years ago I knew nothing whatever of the business. The process of education was almost as amusing as expensive. But that fashion of humour is threadbare. In those early days I would have none of your geraniums, hardy perennials, and such common things, diligently studying the growers' catalogs. I looked out, not novelties alone, but curious novelties. Not one of them did any good to the best of my recollection. In patient and disgusted, I formed several extraordinary projects to evade my ignorance of horticulture. Among others which I recollect was an idea of growing bulbs the year round. No trouble with bulbs, you just plant them and they do their duty. A patient friend at Q made me a list of genera and species which, if all went well, should flower in succession. But there was a woeful gap about mid-summer, just the time when gardens ought to be brightest. Still I resolved to carry out the scheme, so far as it went, and forwarded my list to Covent Garden for an estimate of the expense. It amounted to some hundreds of pounds, so that notion fell through. But the patient friend suggested something for which I still cherish his memory. He pointed out that bulbs look very formal mostly, unless planted in great quantities, as may be done with the cheap sorts, tulips and such. An undergrowth of low brightly coloured annuals would correct this disadvantage. I caught the hint, and I profit by it to this more enlightened day. Spring bulbs are still a speciality of my gardening. I buy them fresh every autumn. Not of Monsieur Prothero and Morris in Cheepside, not at the dealers. Thus they are comparatively inexpensive. After planting my tulips, narcissus, and such tall things, however, I close the beds with forget-me-not, or salini pendula, or both, which keep them green through the winter, and form a dense carpet in spring. Through it the bulbs push, and both flower at the same time. Thus my brilliant tulips, snowy narcissus poeticus, golden daffodils, rise above and among a sheet of blue or pink, one or the other to match their hue, and look infinitely more beautiful on that ground colour. I venture to say indeed that no garden on earth can be more lovely than mine, while the forget-me-not and the bulbs are flowering together. This may be a familiar practice, but I never met with it elsewhere. In the wild scheme I recollect, water plants need no attention. The most skillful horticulturists cannot improve, the most ignorant cannot harm them. I seriously proposed to convert my lawn into a tank two feet deep, lined with Roman cement, and warmed by a furnace, there to grow tropical nymphaea, with a vague, etc. The idea was not so absolutely mad as the unlearned may think. The two of my relatives were first and second to flower Victoria Regia in the open air, but they had more than a few feet of garden. The chances go, in fact, that it would have been carried through had I been certain of remaining in England for the time necessary. Meanwhile I constructed two big tanks of wood lined with sheet zinc, and a small one to stand on legs. The experts were much amused. Neither fish nor plant, they said, could live in a zinc vessel. They proved to be right in the former case, but utterly wrong in the latter, which you will observe is their special domain. I grew all manner of hardy nymphaea and aquatics for years, until my big tanks sprung a leak. Having learned by that time the ABC, at least of terra firma gardening, I did not trouble to have them mended. On the contrary, making more holes, I filled the centre with pampas-grass and variegated euleias, set lady-grass and others round and bordered the hole with labelia, renewing, in fact, somewhat of the spring effect. Next year, however, I shall plant them with anomathica cruenta, quaintest of flowering grasses, if a grass it must be called. This charming species from South Africa is very little known. Readers who take the hint will be grateful to me. They will find it decidedly expensive, bought by the plant, as growers prefer to sell, but with a little pressing seed may be obtained, and it multiplies fast. I find anomathica cruenta hardy in my sheltered garden. The small tank on legs still remains, and I cut a few nymphaea odorata every year, but it is mostly given up to Aponogitan distachion, the cape lily. They seed very freely in the open, and if this tank lay in the ground, long since their exquisite white flowers, so strange in shape and so powerful of scent, would have stood as thick as blades of grass upon it. Such a lovely sight as was beheld in the garden of the late Mr. Harrison at Shortlands. But being raised two feet or so with a current of air beneath, its contents are frozen to a solid block, soil and all, again and again each winter, that a cape plant should survive such treatment seems incredible, contrary to all the books. But my established Aponogitan do, somehow, only the seedlings perish. Here again is a useful hint, I trust. But, evidently, it would be better, if convenient, to take the bulbs indoors before frost sets in. Having water thus at hand, it very soon occurred to me to make war upon the slugs, by propagating their natural enemies, those banks and borders of saxophrage hypnoides, to which I referred formerly, exact some precaution of the kind. Much as everyone who sees admires them, the slugs, no doubt, are more enthusiastic still. Therefore, I do not recommend that idea. Unless it be supplemented by some effective method of combating a grave disadvantage, my own may not commend itself to everyone. Each spring, I entrust some casual little boy with a pail. He brings it back full of frogspawn, and receives sixpence. I speculate sometimes with complacency, how many thousand of healthy and industrious Batrachians I have reared and turned out for the benefit of my neighbours. Enough, perhaps, but certainly no more, remain to serve me, that I know, because the slugs give very little trouble in spite of the most favourable circumstances. You can always find frogs in my garden by looking for them, but of the thousands hatched every year, 99% must vanish. Do blackbirds and thrushes eat young frogs? They are strangely abundant with me. But those who cultivate tadpoles must look over the breeding pond from time to time. My whole batch was devoured one year by devils. Note the larvae of Didiscus marginalis, the plunger beetle. End note. I have benefited, or at least have puzzled, my neighbours, also by introducing to them another sort of frog. Three years ago I bought 25 Hilo, the pretty green tree species, to dwell in my Odontoglossum house and exterminate the insects. Every ventilator there is covered with perforated zinc to prevent insects getting in. But by some means approaching the miraculous, all my Hilo contrived to escape. Several were caught in the garden and put back, but again they found their way to the open air, and presently my fruit trees became vocal. So far this is the experience of everyone, probably, who has tried to keep green frogs. But in my case they survived two winters, one which everybody recollects. The most severe of this generation, my frogs sang merrily through the summer, but all in a neighbour's garden. I am not acquainted with that family, but it is cheering to think how much innocent diversion I have provided for its members. Pleasant also it is, by the way, to vindicate the character of green frogs. I have never heard them spoken of by gardeners but with contempt. Not only do they persist in escaping, more than that they declined to catch insects, sitting motionless all day long. Pretty, if you like, but useless. The fact is that all these creatures are nocturnal of habit. Very few men visit their orchid houses at night, as I do constantly. They would see the frogs active enough then, creeping with wondrous dexterity among the leaves, and springing like a green flash upon their prey. Naturally, therefore, they do not catch thrips or mealy bug or aphis. These are too small a game for the midnight sportsmen. Woodlice, centipedes, above all cockroaches. Those hideous and deadly foes of the orchid are their victims. All who can keep them safe should have green frogs by the score in every house which they do not fumigate. I have come to the orchids at last. It follows, indeed almost of necessity, that a man who has travelled much, an enthusiast in horticulture, should drift into that branch as years advance. Modesty would be out of place here. I have had successes. And if it please heaven, I shall win more. But orchid culture is not to be dealt with at the end of an article. Section three. In the days of my apprenticeship, I put up a big greenhouse. Unable to manage plants in the open air, I expected to succeed with them under unnatural conditions. These memories are strung together with the hope of encouraging a forlorn and desperate amateur here or there. And surely that confession will cheer him. However deep his ignorance, it could not possibly be more finished than mine, some dozen years ago. And yet I may say, je suis arrivé. What that greenhouse cost? Chilled remembrance shudders to recall. Briefly, six times the amount, at least, which I should find ample now. And it was all wrong when done. Not a trace of the original arrangement remains at this time. But there are inherent defects. Nothing throve, of course, except the insects. Mildew seized my roses as fast as I put them in. Camellias dropped their buds with rigid punctuality. Azaleas were devoured by thrips. Bugs, mealy and scaly, gathered to the feast. Duraniums and pelagoniums grew like giants, but declined to flower. I consulted the local authority who was responsible for the well-being of a dozen gardens in the neighbourhood. An expert with a character to lose, from whom I bought largely, said he after a thorough inspection, this concrete floor holds the water. You must have it swept carefully night and morning. That worthy man had a large business. His advice was sought by scores of neighbours like myself. And I tell the story as a warning, for he represents no small section of his class. My plants wanted not less, but a great deal more water on that villainous concrete floor. Despairing of horticulture indoors as out, I sometimes thought of orchids. I had seen much of them in their native homes, both east and west, enough to understand that their growth is governed by strict law. Other plants, roses and so forth, are always playing tricks. They must have this and that treatment at certain times, the nature of which could not be precisely described, even if gardening books were written by men used to carry all the points of a subject in their minds, and to express exactly what they mean. Experience alone of rather a dirty and uninteresting class will give the skill necessary for success. And then they commit villainies of ingratitude beyond explanation. I knew that orchids must be quite different. Each class demands certain conditions as a preliminary, if none of them can be provided. It is a waste of money to buy plants. But when the needful conditions are present and the poor things thus relieved of a ceaseless preoccupation can attend to business, it follows like a mathematical demonstration that if you treat them in such and such a way, such and such results will assuredly ensue. I was not aware then that many defy the most patient analysis of cause and effect. That knowledge is familiar now, but it does not touch the argument. Those cases also are governed by rigid laws, which we do not yet understand. Therefore, I perceived or suspected at an early date that orchid culture is, as one may say, the natural province of an intelligent and enthusiastic amateur who has not the technical skill required for growing common plants. For it is brainwork, the other mechanical. But I shared the popular notion, which seems so very absurd now, that they are costly both to purchase and to keep. Shared it so ingenuously that I never thought to ask myself how or why they could be more expensive after the first outlay than azaleas or gardenias. And meanwhile, I was laboriously and impatiently gathering some comprehension of the ordinary plants. It was accident which broke the spell of ignorance, visiting Stephen's auction rooms one day to buy bulbs. I saw a cat-layer mossy eye in bloom, which had not found a purchaser at the last orchid sale. A lucky impulse tempted me to ask the price. Four shillings, said the invaluable Charles. I could not believe it. There must be a mistake, as if Charles ever made a mistake in his life. When he repeated the price, however, I seized that precious cat-layer, slapped down the money, and fled with it along King Street, fearing pursuit. Since no one followed and Mr. Stevens did not write within the next few days reclaiming my treasure, I pondered the incident calmly. Perhaps they had been selling bankrupt stock, and perhaps they often do so. Presently I returned. Charles, I said, you sold me a cat-layer mossy eye the other day. Charles, in shirt sleeves, of course, was analysing and summing up half a hundred loose sheets of figures as calm and sure as a calculating machine. I know I did, sir, he replied cheerfully. It was rather dear, wasn't it? I said. That's your business, sir, he laughed. Could I often get an established plant of cat-layer mossy eye in flower for four shillings? I asked. Give me the order, and I'll supply as many as you're likely to want within a month. That was a revelation, and I tell the little story, because I know it will be a revelation to many others. People here have great sums paid for orchids, and they fancy that such represent only the extreme limits of an average. In fact, they have no relation whatsoever to the ordinary price. One of our largest general growers, who has but lately begun cultivating those plants, tells me that half a crown is the utmost he has paid for cat-layers and dendrobes, one shilling for adontaglots and oncydiums. At these rates, he has now a fine collection, many turning up among the lot for which he asks and gets as many pounds as the pence he gave. For such are imported, of course, and sold at auction as they arrive. This is not an article on orchids, but on my gardening, or I could tell some extraordinary tales. Briefly, I myself once bought a case two feet long, a foot wide, half full of adontaglossums for eight shillings and sixpence. They were small bits, but perfect in condition. Of the fifty-three pots they made, not one, I think, has been lost. I sold the less valuable some years ago when established and tested at a fabulous profit. Another time I bought three strings of O. Alexandri, the patch-o variety, which is finest, for fifteen shillings. They filled thirty-six pots, some three to a pot, for I could not make room for them all singly. Again, but this is enough. I only wish to demonstrate for the service of very small amateurs like myself that costliness, at least, is no obstacle if they have a fancy for this culture, unless, of course, they demand wonders and specimens. That catlaya mossy eye was my first orchid bought in 1884. It dwindled away, and many another followed it to limbo, but I knew enough, as has been said, to feel neither surprised nor angry. First of all, it is necessary to understand the general conditions and to secure them. Books give little help in this stage of education. They all lack detail in the preliminaries. I had not the good fortune to come across a friend or a gardener who grasped what was wrong until I found out for myself. For instance, no one told me that the concrete flooring of my house was a fatal error. When, a little disheartened, I made a new one by glazing that Ruelle mentioned in the preliminary survey of my garden, they allowed me to repeat it. Ingenious were my contrivances to keep the air moist, but none answered. It is not easy to find a material, trim and clean, which can be laid over concrete, but unless one can discover such, it is useless to grow orchids. I have no doubt that 99 cases of failure in a hundred, among amateurs, are due to an unsuitable flooring. Glazed tiles, so common, are infinitely worst of all. May my experience profit others in like case. Looking over the trade list of a man who manufactures orchid pots one day, I observed sea sand for garden walks, and the preoccupation of years was dissipated. Sea sand will hold water, yet will keep a firm, clean surface. It needs no rolling, does not show footprints, nor muddier visitors' boots. By next evening the floors were covered there with six inches deep, and forthwith, my orchids began to flourish, not only to live. Long since, of course, I had provided a supply of water from the main to each house for damping down. All round them now, a leaden pipe was fixed, with pinholes 12 inches apart, and a length of India rubber hose at the end to fix upon the stand pipe. Attaching this, I turned the cock, and from each tiny hole spurts forth the jet, which in 10 minutes will lay the whole floor under water, and convert the house into a shallow pond. But five minutes afterwards, not a sign of the deluge is visible, then I felt the joys of orchid culture. Much remained to learn, much still remains. We have some 5,000 species in cultivation, of which an alarming number demands some difference of treatment, if one would grow them to perfection. The amateur does not easily collect, nor remember all this, and he is apt to be daunted if he inquire too deeply before letting himself go. Such, in a special, I would encourage, perfection is always a noble aim, but orchids do not exact it. Far from that, the deer creatures will struggle to fulfill your hopes, to correct your errors, with pathetic patience. Give them but a chance, and they will await the progress of your education. That chance lies, as has been said, in the general conditions, the degree of moisture you can keep in the air, the ventilation, and the light. These secured, you may turn up the books, consult the authorities, and gradually accumulate the knowledge which will enable you to satisfy the preferences of each class. So, in good time, you may enjoy such a thrill of pleasure, as I felt the other day, when a great pundit was good enough to pay me a call. He entered my tiny, adonder-glossom house, looked round, looked round again, and turned to me, Sir, he said, we don't call this an amateurs' collection. I have jotted down such hints of my experience, as may be valuable to others, who, as juvenile put it, own but a single lizard's run of earth. That space is enough to yield endless pleasure, amusement, and indeed profit, if a man cultivated himself. Enthusiast as I am, I would not accept another foot of garden. CHAPTER II CHAPTER II Shortly after noon on a sale-day, the habitual customers of Mr. Prothero and Morris begin to assemble in Cheepside. On tables of roughest plank round the auction-rooms there are neatly arranged the various lots. Bugs and sticks of every shape, big and little, withered or green, dull or shining, with a brown leaf here and there, or a mass of roots, dry as last year's bracken. No promise do they suggest of the brilliant colours and strange forms buried in embryo within their uncouth bulk. On a cross-table stand some dozens of established plants in pots and baskets, which the owners would like to part with. Their growths of this year are verdant, but the old bulbs look almost as sapless as those new arrivals. Very few are in flower just now. July and August are a time of pause, betwixt the glories of the spring and the milder effulgence of autumn. Some great dendrobes, D. Dalhousianum, are bursting into untimely bloom, betraying to the initiated that their establishment is little more than a phrase. Those garlands of bud were conceived, so to speak, in Indian forests, have lain dormant through the long voyage and began to show a few days since, when restored to a congenial atmosphere. All our interest concentrates in the unlovely things along the wall. The habitual attendance at an auction room are always somewhat of a family party, but as a rule an ugly one. It is quite different with the regular group of orchid buyers. No black sheep there. A dispute is the rarest of events. And when it happens, everybody takes for granted that the cause is a misunderstanding. The professional growers are men of wealth, the amateurs, men of standing at least. All know each other and are cheerful familiarity rules. We have a duke in person frequently who compares notes and asks a hint from the authorities around. Some clergymen, gentry of every rank, the recognized agents of great cultivators and, of course, the representatives of the large trading firms. So narrow even yet is the circle of orchidations that almost all the faces at a sale are recognized. And if one wished to learn the names, somebody present can nearly always supply them. There is reason to hope that this will not be the case much longer. As the mysteries and superstitions invarianing the orchid are dispersed, our small and select throng of buyers will be swamped no doubt. And if a certain pleasing feature of the business be lost, all who love the flower and their fellow men alike will cheerfully submit. The talk is of orchids mostly, as these gentlemen stroll along the tables, lifting a route and scrutinizing it with practiced glance that measures its vital strength in a second. But nurserymen take advantage of the gathering to show any curious or striking flower they chance to have at the moment. Mr. Bull's representative goes round, showing to one and another the contents of a little box, a lovely bloom of Aristolokia elegans, figured in dark red on white ground, like a sublime croton and a new variety of impatiens. He distributes the latter presently and gentlemen adorn their coats with the pale crimson flower. Excitement does not often run so high as in the times which most of those present can recall when orchids common now were treasured by millionaires. Steam and the commercial enterprise it fosters have so multiplied our stocks that shillings, or pence often enough, represent the guineas of twenty years back. There are many here scarcely yet gray who could describe the scene when Mastavalia tovarensis first covered the stages of an auction room. Its dainty white flowers had been known for several years. A resident in the German colony at Tover, New Grenada, sent one plant to a friend at Manchester by whom it was divided. Each fragment brought a great sum and the purchasers repeated this operation as fast as their morsels grew. Thus a conventional price was established, one guinea per leaf. Importers were few in those days and the number of tovars in South America bewildered them. At length, Monsieur Sander got on the track and commissioned Mr. Arnold to solve the problem. Arnold was a man of great energy and warm temper. Legend reports that he threw up the undertaking once because a gun offered him with second hand. His prudence was vindicated afterwards by the misfortune of a confreer, poor Bergeron, whose second hand gun, presented by a Belgian employer, burst at a critical moment and crippled him for life. At the very moment of starting, Arnold had trouble with the railway officials. He was taking a quantity of sphagnum moss in which to wrap the precious things and they refused to let him carry it by passenger train. The stationmaster at Waterloo had never felt the atmosphere so warm, they say. In brief, this was a man who stood in no nonsense. A young fellow passenger showed much sympathy while the row went on and Arnold learned with pleasure that he also was bound for Caracas. This young man, whose name it is not worthwhile to cite, presented himself as agent for a manufacturer of Birmingham goods. There was no need for secrecy with a person of that sort. He questioned Arnold about orchids with a blank but engaging ignorance of the subject and before the voyage was over, he had learned all his friends' hopes and projects. But the deception could not be maintained at Caracas. There Arnold discovered that the hardware agent was a collector and grower of orchids sufficiently well known. He said nothing, suffered his rival to start, overtook him at a village where the man was taking supper, marched in, barred as the door, sat down opposite, put a revolver on the table, and invited him to draw. It should be a fair fight, said Arnold, but one of the pair must die. So convinced was the traitor of his earnestness, with good reason too, as Arnold's acquaintances declare, that he slipped under the table and discussed terms of abject surrender from that retreat. So, in due time, M. Sander received more than 40,000 plants of Mastivalia tovarensis, sent them direct to the auction room and drove down the price in one month from a guinea leaf to the fraction of a shilling. Other great sales might be recalled as that of Phalaenopsis sandariana and Vanda sandariana, when a sum as yet unparalleled was taken in the room. Kipropidium spicerianum, Kipropidium curtaceae, Loelia ankeps alba. Rarely now are we thrilled by sensations like these, but 1891 brought two of the old-fashioned sort, the reappearance of Catlea labiata autumnalis and the public sale of dendrobium phalaenopsis shrodarianum. The former event deserves a special article, The Lost Orchid. But the latter also was most interesting. Macea sandar are the heroes of both. Dendrobium phalaenopsis shrodarianum was not quite a novelty. The authorities of Q obtained two plants from an island in Australasia a good many years ago. They presented a piece to Mr. Lee of Leatherhead and another to Baron Schroeder. When Mr. Lee's grand collection was dispersed, the Baron brought his plant also for 35 pounds and thus possessed the only specimens in private hands. His name was given to the species. Under these conditions, the man lucky and enterprising enough to secure a few cases of the dendrobium might look for a grand return. It seemed likely that New Guinea would prove to be its chief habitat and thither Mr. Michalits was dispatched. He found it without difficulty and collected a great number of plants, but then troubles began. The vessel which took them aboard caught fire in port and poor Michalits escaped with bare life. He telegraphed the disastrous news. Ship burnt. What do? Go back, replied his employer. Too late, rainy season was the answer. Go back, Mr. Sander repeated. Back he went. This was in Dutch territory. Well, writes Mr. Michalits. There is no doubt these are the meanest people on earth. On my telling them that it was very mean to demand anything from a shipwrecked man, they gave me 30% deduction on my passage, $201 instead of $280. However, he reached New Guinea once more and tried fresh ground, having exhausted the former field. Again, he found the dendrobiums of better quality and in greater number than before, but they were growing among bones and skeletons in the graveyard of the natives. Those people lay their dead in a slight coffin, which they place upon the rocks, just above high tide, a situation which the dendrobes love. Mr. Michalits required all his tact and all his most attractive presence before he could persuade the Papuans to let him even approach, but brass wire proved irresistible. They not only suffered him to disturb the bones of their ancestors, but even helped him to stow the plunder. One condition they made that a favourite idol should be packed therewith. This admitted they performed a war dance round the cases and assisted in transporting them. All went well this time and in due course the tables were loaded with thousands of a plant which, before the consignment was announced, had been the special glory of a collection which is among the richest of the universe. There were two memorable items in this sale, the idol, a foresaid, and a skull to which one of the dendrobes had attached itself. Both were exhibited as trophies and curiosities, not to be disposed of, but by mistake the idol was put up. It fetched only a trifle, quite as much as it was worth, however, but Honourable Walter de Rothschild fancied it for his museum and on learning what had happened, Mr. Sunder begged the purchaser to name his own price. That individual refused. It was a great day indeed. Very many of the leading orchid growers of the world were present and almost all had their gardeners or agents there. Such success called rivals into the field, but New Guinea is a perilous land to explore. Only last week we heard that Mr. White of Winchmore Hill has perished in the search for dendrobium phallinopsis shodarianum. I mentioned the great sale of Kipropidium curtesci, just now, and odd little story attaches to it. Now director of the Botanic Gardens Penang sent this plant home from Sumatra when travelling for Macea Veich in 1882. The consignment was small, no more followed, and Kipropidium curtesci became a prize. Its habitat was unknown. Mr. Sander instructed his collector to look for it. Five years the search lasted, with many intermissions, of course, and many a success in discovering other fine things, but Mr. Erexon disappeared at last. In one of his expeditions to Sumatra, he climbed a mountain. It has been observed before that one must not ask details of locality when collecting orchid legends. So well known is this mountain, however, that the government, Dutch, I presume, has built a shelter for travellers upon it. There Mr. Erexon put up for the night. Several Europeans had inscribed their names upon the wall with reflections and sentiments, as is the won't of people who climb mountains. Among these, by the morning light, Mr. Erexon perceived the sketch of a Kipropidium, as he lay upon his rugs. It represented a green flower, white-tipped, veined and spotted with purple, purple of lip. Kurtisai by Jove, he cried in his native Swedish, and jumped up, no doubt of it. Beneath the drawing ran CC's contribution to the adornment of this house. Whipping out his pencil, Mr. Erexon wrote, Contribution accepted, Kipropidium collected, CE. But day by day, he sought the plant in vain, his cases filled with other treasures, but for the hope that sketch conveyed, long since he would have left the spot. After all, Mr. Kurtis might have chosen the flower by mere chance to decorate the wall. The natives did not know it, so orders were given to pack, and next day Mr. Erexon would have withdrawn. On the very evening, however, one of his men brought in the flower. A curious story, if one think, but I am in a position to guarantee its truth. Of another class, but not less renowned in its way, was the sale of March the 11th last year. It had been heavily advertised, a leading continental importer announced the discovery of a newer Donterglossum. No less than six varieties of type were employed to call public attention to its merits, and this was really no extravagant allowance under the circumstances alleged. It was a grand new species, destined to be a gem in the finest collections, a favorite, the most attractive of plants. Its flowers were wholly tinged with a most delicate mauve, the base of the segment and the lip of a most charming violet. In short, it was the blue a Donterglossum, and well-deserved, the title Celeste. And the whole stock of two hundred plants would be offered to British enthusiasm. No wonder the crowd was thick at Monsieur Prothero's room on that March morning. Few leading amateurs or growers who could not attend in person were unrepresented at the psychological moment when Eganess had reached the highest pitch and Orchid was brought in and set before them. Those experienced persons glanced at it and said, Very nice. But haven't you and a Donterglossum Celeste to show? The unhappy agent protested that this was the divine thing. No one would believe at first the joke was too good to put it in that mild form. When at length it became evident that this grand new species, heavenly gem, et cetera, was the charming but familiar Donterglossum grimosisissimum, such a tumult of laughter and indignation arose that Monsieur Prothero quashed the sale. A few other instances of the kind might be given, but none so grand. The special interest of the sale to us lies in some novelties collected by Mr. Edward Wallace in parts unknown, and he is probably among us. Mr. Wallace has no adventures in particular to relate this time, but he tells with due caution where and how his treasures were gathered in South America. There is a land which those who have geographical knowledge sufficient may identify, surrounded by the territories of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil. It is traversed by some few Indian tribes and no collector hitherto had penetrated it. Mr. Wallace followed the central line of mountains from Colombia for 150 miles, passing a succession of rich valleys, described as the loveliest ever seen by this veteran young traveller, such as would support myriads of cattle. League beyond league stretches the Páquedena grass, pastureage unequalled, but the wild herds that never knew a fold are its only denizens. Here on the mountain slopes, Mr. Wallace found Blitia Cheratiana, the white form very rare, another terrestrial orchid unnamed and, as is thought unknown, which sends up a branching spike two feet to three feet high, bearing ten to twelve flowers of rich purple hue in shape like a sobralia three and four inches across and yet another of the same family growing on the rocks and looking like masses of snow on the hillside. Such descriptions are thrilling, but these gentlemen received them placidly. They would like to know, perhaps, what is the reserve price on such fine things and what's the chance of growing them to a satisfactory result. Dealers have a profound distrust of novelties, especially those of terrestrial genus, and their feeling is shared for a like reason why most do have large collections. Mr. Burbage estimates roughly that we have fifteen hundred to two thousand species and varieties of orchid in cultivation, a startling figure which almost justifies the belief of those who hold that no other's worth growing will be found in countries already explored. But beyond question there are six times this number in existence, which collectors have not taken the trouble to gather. The chances, therefore, are against any new thing. Many species well-known show slight differences of growth in different localities. Upon the whole, regular orchidations prefer that someone else should try experiments and would rather pay a good price when assured that it is worth their while than a few shillings when the only certainty is trouble and the strong probability is failure. Mr. Wallace has nothing more to tell of the undiscovered country. The Indians received him with composure after he had struck up friendship with an old woman, and for the four days of his stay made themselves both useful and agreeable in their fashion. The auctioneer has been chatting among his customers. He feels an interest in his wares, as who would not that dealt in objects of the extremist beauty and fascination to him are consigned occasionally plants of unusual class, which the owner regards as unique and expects to sell at the fanciest of prices. Unique indeed they must be, which can pass unchallenged the ordeal of those keen and learned eyes. Plumeria alba, for instance, may be laid before them, and by no inexperienced horticulturist with such a reserve as befits one of the most exquisite flowers known and the only specimen in England. But a quiet smile goes round and a gentleman present offers in an audible whisper to send in a dozen of that next week at a fraction of the price. So pleasant chat goes on until that's the stroke of half past twelve the auctioneer mounts his rostrum. First to come before him are a hundred lots of a Donterglossum crispum alexandri described as of the very best type and in splendid condition. For the latter point everyone present is able to judge and for the former all are willing to accept the statements of vendors. The glossy bulbs are clean as new pins with the small eye just bursting among their roots. But nobody seems to want a Donterglossum alexandri in particular. One neat little bunch is sold for eleven shillings which will surely bear a wreath of white flowers splashed with red-brown in the spring, perhaps two, and then bidding ceases. The auctioneer exclaims, does anybody want any crispums? And instantly passes by the ninety-nine lots remaining. It would mislead the unlearned public and would not greatly interest them to go through the catalogue of an orchid sale and quote the selling price of every lot. From week to week the value of these things fluctuates, that is of course of bulbs imported and unestablished. Various circumstances affect it, but especially the time of year. They sell best in spring when they have months of light and sun before them in which to recover from the effects of a long voyage and uncomfortable quarters. The buyer must make them grow strong before the dark days of an English winter are upon him and every month that passes weakens his chance. In August it is already late. In September the periodical auctions ceased until lately. Some few consignments will be received, detained by accident or forwarded by persons who do not understand the business. That instance of a Donterglossum alexandri shows well enough the price of orchids this month and the omission of all that followed illustrates it. The same lots would have been eagerly contested at twice the sum in April, but those who want that queen-liester flowers may get it for shillings at any time. The reputation of the importer and his assurance that the plants belong to the very best type give these more value than usual. He will try his luck once more perhaps this season and then he will pot the bulbs unsold to offer them as established next year. Oncidium luridum follows the O'Dontergloss, a broad-leafed, handsome orchid which the untrained eye might think to have no pseudo bulb at all. This species always commands a sale, if cheap, and tensionings is a reasonable figure for a piece of common size. If all go well it may throw out a branching spike six or seven feet long next summer with, such a sight has been offered, several hundred blooms, yellow, brown and orange. Oncidium junkifolium, which comes next, is unknown to us and probably to others. No offer is made for its reed-like growths, described as very free-blooming all the year round with small yellow flowers. Epidendrum bicornutum, on the other hand, is very well known and deeply admired when seen, but this is an event too rare. The description of its exquisite white blossoms, crimson-spotted on the lip, is still rather a legend than a matter of eyewitness. Somebody is reported to have grown it for some years like a cabbage, but his success was a mystery to himself. At Q they find no trouble in certain parts of a certain house. Most of these, however, are fine growths and the average price should be 12 shillings and sixpence, to 15 shillings. Compare such figures with those that ruled when the popular impression of the cost of orchids was forming, I have none at hand which refer to the examples mentioned, but in the cases following, one may safely reckon shillings at the present day for pounds in 1846. That year I perceive such common species as balkyria spectabolus fetched five pounds to 17 pounds each. Epidendrum stanfordianum, five guineas, dendrobium formosum, 15 guineas, erides maculosum, chryspum and odoratum, 20 pounds, 21 pounds and 16 pounds respectively. No one who understands orchids will believe that the specimens which brought such monstrous prices were superior in any respect to those we now receive, and he will be absolutely sure that they were landed in much worse condition. But the average cost of the most expensive at the present day might be 30 shillings and only a large piece would fetch that sum. It is astonishing to me that so few people grow orchids. Every modern book on gardening tells how 500 varieties at least, the freest to flower and as surety as beautiful as any, may be cultivated without heat for seven or eight months of the year. It is those legends I have spoken of which deter the public from entertaining the notion. An afternoon at an orchid sale would dispel them. End of chapter two. Section four of About Orchids a Chat. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Peter Yersley. About Orchids a Chat by Frederick Boyle. Orchids. There is no room to deal with this great subject historically, scientifically or even practically in the space of a chapter. I am an enthusiast and I hold some strong views, but this is not the place to urge them. It is my purpose to ramble on following thoughts as they arise, yet with a definite aim. The skilled reader will find nothing to criticise I hope and the indifferent something to amuse. Those amiable theorists who believe that the resources of nature if they be rightly searched are able to supply every wholesome want the fancy of man conceives have a striking instance in the case of orchids. At the beginning of this century, the science of floriculture, so far as it went, was at least as advanced as now. Under many disadvantages, which we escape, the hot air flew especially and imperfect means of ventilation, our forefathers grew the plants known to them quite as well as we do. Many tricks have been discovered since, but for lasting success, assuredly our systems are no improvement. Men interested in such matters began to long for fresh fields and they knew where to look. Linnaeus had told them something of exotic orchids in 1763, though his knowledge was gained through dried specimens and drawings. One bulb indeed, we spare the name, showed life on arrival, had been planted and had flowered 30 years before as Mr. Castle shows. Thus horticulturists became aware just when the information was most welcome that a large family of plants unknown awaited their attention. Plants quite new of strangest form of mysterious habits and beauty incomparable. Their notions were vague as yet, but the fascination of the subject grew from year to year. Whilst several hundred species were described in books, the number in cultivation, including all those gathered by Sir Joseph Banks and our native kinds, was only 50. Q hosted no more than 118 in 1813. Amateurs still watched in timid and breathless hope. Gradually they came to see that the new field was open and they entered with a rush. In 1830 a number of collections still famous in the legends of the mystery are found complete. At the Orchid Conference Mr. O'Brien expressed a fear that we could not now match some of the specimens mentioned at the exhibitions of the Horticultural Society in Chiswick Gardens between 1835 and 1850 and extracts which he gave from reports confirmed this suspicion. The number of species cultivated at that time was comparatively small. People grew magnificent specimens in place of many handsome pots. We read of things amazing to the experience of 40 years later. Among the contributions of Mrs. Lawrence, mother to our chief, Sir Trevor, was an Airedes with 30 to 40 flower spikes, a Catlea with 20 spikes, an Epidendrum by Cornutum, difficult to keep alive much more to bloom until the last few years, with many spikes. And on Kidium bearing a head of golden flowers four feet across, giants dwelt in our greenhouses then. So the want of enthusiasts was satisfied. In 1852 Mr. B. S. Williams could venture to publish Orchids for the Million, a handbook of worldwide fame under the title it presently assumed the Orchid Grower's Manual, an occupation or amusement the interest of which grows year by year had been discovered. All who took trouble to examine found proof visible that these masterworks of nature could be transplanted and could be made to flourish in our dull climate with a regularity and a certainty unknown to them at home. The difficulties of their culture were found to be a myth. We speak generally, and this point must be mentioned again. The million did not yet heed Mr. Williams's invitation, but the ten thousand did, heartily. I take it that Orchids meet a craving of the cultured soul which began to be felt at the moment when kindly powers provided means to satisfy it. People of taste, unless I err, are tiring of those conventional forms in which beauty has been presented in all past generations. It may be an unhealthy sentiment, it may be absurd, but my experience is that it exists and must be taken into account. A picture, a statue, a piece of China, any work of art is eternally the same, however charming. The most one can do is to set it in different positions, different lights. Theophily Gaotier declared in a moment of frank impatience that if the transfiguration hung in his study he would assuredly find blemishes there in after a while. Quite fanciful and baseless, as he knew, but such, nevertheless, as would drive him to distraction presently. I entertain a notion which may appear very odd to some that Gaotier's influence on the ascetic class of men has been more vigorous than that of any other teacher. Thousands who never read a line of his writing are unconsciously inspired by him. The feeling that gave birth to his protest nearly two generations since is in the air now. Those who own a collection of art, those who have paid a great sum for pictures, will not allow it, naturally. As a rule, indeed, a man looks at his fine things no more than at his chairs and tables, but he who is best able to appreciate good work and loves it best when he sees it is the one who grows restless when it stands constantly before him. Oh, that those lips had language, cried Cooper. Oh, that those lovely figures would combine and you change their light. Do anything, anything, cries the East Seat after a while. Oh, that the wind would rise upon that glorious sea. The summer green would fade to autumn yellow. That night would turn to day clouds to sunshine or sunshine to clouds. But the littora scripta menet, the stroke of the brush is everlasting. Apollo always bends the bow in marble. One may read a poem till it is known by heart and in another second the familiar words strike fresh upon the ear. Painters lay a canvas aside and presently come to it, as they say, with a new eye. But a purchaser once seized with this desperate melody has no such refuge. After putting his treasure away for years, at the first glance all his satiety returns. I myself have diagnosed a case where a fine drawing by Jerome grew to be a veritable incubus. It is understood that the market for pictures is falling yearly. I believe that the growth of this dislike to the eternal stillness of a painted scene is a chief cause of the disaster. It operates among the best class of patrons. For such men orchids are a blessed relief. Fancy has not conceived such loveliness, complete all round as theirs. Form, color, grace, distribution, detail, and broad effect. Somewhere years ago, in Italy perhaps, but I think at the Taylor Institution, Oxford, I saw the drawings made by Raphael for Leo X of furniture and decoration in his new palace. Be it observed in parenthesis that one who has not beheld the master's work in this utilitarian style of art has but a limited understanding of his supremacy. Among them were idealizations of flowers, beautiful and marvellous as fairyland, but compared with the glory divine that dwells in a garland of a Donterglossum Alexandrie, artificial earthy. Illustrations of my meaning are needless to experts and to others words convey no idea. But on the table before me now stands a wreath of Oncidium Crispum, which I cannot pass by. What colorist would dare to mingle these lustrous browns with pale gold? What master of form could shape the bold yet dainty waves and crisps and curls in its broad petals? What human imagination could bend the graceful curve, arrange the clustering masses of its bloom? All beauty that the mind can hold is there, the quintessence of all charm and fancy. Were I acquainted with an atheist who by possibility had brain and feeling, I would set that spray before him and await reply. If Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like a lily of the field, the angels of heaven have no vesture more ethereal than the flower of the orchid. Let us take breath. Many persons indifferent to gardening who are repelled indeed by its prosaic accompaniments, the dirt, the manure, the formality, the spade, the rake and all that, love flowers nevertheless. For such these plants are more than a relief. Observe my Oncidium, it stands in a pot, but this is only for convenience, a receptacle filled with moss. The long stem, feathered with great blossoms, springs from a bare slab of wood. No mould nor peat surrounds it. There is absolutely nothing save the roots that twine round their support, and the wire that sustains it in the air. It asks no attention beyond its daily bath. From the day I tied it on that block last year, ref'd from home and all its pleasures, bought with poultry silver at Stephen's auction rooms, I have not touched it, saved to dip and to replace it on its hook. When the flowers fade, scissor it will return, and grow and grow, please heaven, until next summer it rejoices me again, and so year by year till the wood rots, then carefully I shall transfer it to a larger perch and resume. Probably I shall sever the bulbs without disturbing them, and in seasons following two spikes will push, then three, then a number, multiplying and multiplying, when my remotest posterity is extinct. That is, so nature orders it. Whether my descendants will be careful to allow her fair play depends on circumstances over which I have not the least control. For among their innumerable claims to a place apart among all things created, orchids may boast immortality. Said Sir Trevor Lawrence in the speech which opened our famous Congress, 1885, I do not see in the case of most of them the least reason why they should ever die. The parts of the orchidii are annually reproduced in a great many instances, and there is really no reason they should not live forever, unless, as is generally the case with them in captivity, they be killed by errors in cultivation. Sir Trevor was addressing an assemblage of authorities, a parterre of kings in the Empire of Botany, or he might have enlarged upon this text. The epiphytale orchid, to speak generally and to take the simple form, is one body with several limbs crowned by one head. Its circulation pulsates through the hole, less and less vigorously, of course, in the parts that have flowered as the growing head leaves them behind. At some age, no doubt, circulation fails altogether in those old limbs, but experience does not tell me distinctly as yet in how long time the worn out bulbs of an onchidium or a cut layer, for example, would perish by natural death. One may cut them off when apparently lifeless, even beginning to rot, and under proper conditions, it may be a 12 month after, a tiny green shoot will push from some eye, withered and invisible that has slept for years and begin existence on its own account. Thus I am not old enough as an orchidacean to judge through how many seasons these plants will maintain a limb apparently superfluous. Their charming disposition is characterised above all things by caution and foresight. They keep as many strings to their bow as many shots in their locker as may be, and they keep them as long as possible. The tender young head may be nipped off by a thousand chances, but such mishaps only rouse the indomitable thing to replace it with two or even more. Beings designed for immortality are hard to kill. Among the gentle forms of intellectual excitement, I know not one to compare with the joy of restoring a neglected orchid to health. One may buy such for coppers, rare species too of a size and a potentiality of display which the dealers would estimate at as many pounds were they in good condition on their shelves. I am avoiding names and details, but it will be allowed me to say in brief that I myself have bought more than twenty pots for five shillings at the auction rooms, not twice nor thrice either. One half of them were sick beyond recovery. Some few had been injured by accident, but by far the greater part were victims of ignorance and ill-treatment which might still be redressed. Orchids tell their own tale, whether of happiness or misery, in characters beyond dispute. Mr. O'Brien alleged, indeed, before the grave and experienced seniors gathered in conference, that, like the domestic animals, they soon find out when they are in hands that love them. With such a guardian they seem to be happy and to thrive and to establish an understanding, indicating to him their wants in many important matters as plainly as though they could speak. And the laugh that followed this statement was not derisive. He who glances at the endless tricks, methods and contrivances, devised by one or other species to serve its turn, may welcome to fancy that orchids are reasoning things. At least many keep the record of their history in form unmistakable. Here is a cat-layer which I purchased last autumn, suspecting it to be rare and valuable, though nameless. I paid rather less than one shilling. The poor thing tells me that some cruel person bought it five years ago, an imported piece with two pseudo-bulbs. They still remain, towering like columns of old-world glory above an area of shapeless ruin. To speak in mere prose, though really the conceit is not extravagant, these fine bulbs, grown in their native land, of course, measure eight inches high by three-quarters of an inch diameter. In the first season, that malereur reduced their progeny to a statue of three-and-a-half inches by the foot rule, next season to two inches, the third to an inch-and-a-half. By this time, the patient creature had convinced itself that there was something radically wrong in the circumstances attending its normal head and tried a fresh departure from the stock, a back growth, as we call it, after the fashion I have described. In the third year, then, there were two heads. In the fourth year, the chief of them had dwindled to less than one inch and the thickness of a straw, while the second struggled into growth with pain and difficulty, reached the size of a grain of wheat, and gave it up. Needless to say, that the wicked and unfortunate proprietor had not seen trace of a bloom. Then, at length, after five years' torment, he set it free, and I took charge of the wretched sufferer. Fourth with, he began to show his gratitude, and at this moment, the summer but half through, his leading head has regained all the strength lost in three years, while the back growth, which seemed dead, out-tops the best bulb my predecessor could produce. And I have perhaps a hundred, in like case, cripples regaining activity, victims rescued on their deathbed. If there be a placid joy in life superior to mine as I stroll through my houses of a morning, much experience of the world in many lands and many circumstances has not revealed its to me. And any of my readers can attain it for, in no conventional sense, I am my own gardener. That is to say, no male being ever touches an orchid of mine. One could hardly cite a stronger argument to demolish the superstitions that still hang around this culture. If a busy man, journalist, essayist, novelist, and miscellaneous literateur, who lives by his pen, can keep many hundreds of orchids in such health that he is proud to show them to experts, with no help whatsoever beyond in emergency that which lades of his household or a woman servant give, if he can do this, assuredly the pursuit demands little trouble and little expense. I am not to lay down principles of cultivation here, but this must be said, orchids are indifferent to detail. Their lies are secret. Secure the general conditions necessary for their well-doing and they will gratefully relieve you of further anxiety. Neglect those general conditions and no care will reconcile them. The gentleman who reduced my cat-layer to such straits gave himself vast pains, it is likely. Consulted no end of books, did all they recommend and now declares that orchids are unaccountable. It is just the reverse. No living things follow with such obstinate obedience a few most simple laws. No machine produces its result more certainly if one comply with the rules of its being. This is shown emphatically by those cases which we do not clearly understand. I take, for example, the strangest as is fitting. Some irreverent zealots have hailed the phallinopsis as queen of flowers, dethroning our venerable rose. I have not to consider the question of allegiance, but decidedly this is, upon the whole, the most interesting of all orchids in the cultivator's point of view. For there are some genera and many species that refuses attentions more or less stubbornly. In fact, we do not yet know how to woo them, but the phallinopsis is not among them. It gives no trouble in the great majority of cases. For myself, I find it grow with the calm complacency of the cabbage. Yet we are all aware that our success is accidental in a measure. The general conditions which it demands are fulfilled commonly in any stove where East Indian plants flourish. But from time to time we receive a vigorous hint that particular conditions, not always forthcoming, are exacted by phallinopsis. Many legends on this theme are current. I may cite two, notorious and easily verified. The authorities at Kew determined to build a special house for the genus, provided with every comfort which experience or scientific knowledge could suggest. But when it was opened, six or eight years ago, not a phallinopsis of all the many varieties would grow in it. After vain efforts, Mr. Thysselton Dyer was obliged to seek another use for the building, which is now employed to show plants in flower. Sir Trevor Lawrence tells how he laid out 600 pounds for the same object with the same result. And yet one may safely reckon that this orchid does admirably in nine well-managed stoves out of 10, and fairly in 19 out of 20. Nevertheless, it is a maxim with growers that phallinopsis should never be transferred from a situation where they are doing well. Dyer hooks are sacred as that on which Horace suspended his lyre. Nor could a reasonable man think this fancy extravagant, seeing the evidence beyond dispute which warns us that their health is governed by circumstances more delicate than we can analyze at present. It would be wrong to leave the impression that orchid culture is actually as facile as market gardening. But we may say that the eccentricities of phallinopsis and the rest have no more practical importance for the class I would persuade than have the terrors of the deep for a Thames waterman. How many thousand householders about this city have a bit of glass devoted to geraniums and fuchsias and the like? They started with more ambitious views, but successive disappointments have taught modesty, if not to despair. The poor man now contends himself with anything that will keep tolerably green and show some spindling flower. The fact is that hardy plants under glass demand skillful treatment. All their surroundings are unnatural and with insect pests on one hand, mildew on the other, an amateur stands betwixt the devil and the deep sea. Under those circumstances, common plants become really capricious, that is being ruled by no principles easy to grasp and immutable in operation. Their discomfort shows itself in perplexing forms, but such species of an orchid, as a poor man would think of growing, are incapable of pranks. For one shilling, he can buy a manual which will teach him what these species are and most of the things necessary for him to understand besides, an expenditure of five pounds will set him up for life and beyond, since orchids are immortal. Nothing else is needed, save intelligence. Not even heat, since his collection will be cool, naturally. If frost be excluded, that is enough. I should not have ventured to say this some few years ago, before, in fact, I had visited St. Albans. But in the cool house of that palace of enchantment with which Mr. Sander has adorned the antique borough, before the heating arrangements were quite complete, though the shelves were occupied, often the glass would fall very low into the thirties. I could never learn distinctly that Mischief followed, though Mr. Godsef did not like it at all. One who beheld the sight when those fields of a dontoglossum burst into bloom might well entertain a doubt whether improvement was possible. There is nothing to approach it in this lower world. I cannot forbear to indicate one picture in the grand gallery. Fancy a corridor four hundred feet long, six wide, roofed with square baskets, hanging from the glass as close as they will fit. Suspended to each of these, how many hundreds or thousands has never been computed, one or more garlands of snowy flowers, a thicket overhead, such as one might behold in a tropic forest, with myriads of white butterflies clustering among the vines. But imagination cannot bear mortal man thus far. Upon the banks of paradise, those two clerks may have seen the like. Yet had they done so, their hats would have been adorned not with the berk, but with plumes of a dontoglossum citrosmum. I have but another word to say. If any of the class to whom I appeal inclined to let, I dare not wait upon I would. Hear the experience of a bold enthusiast, as recounted by Mr. Castle in his small brochure, Orchids. This gentleman had a fern case outside his sitting-room window, six feet long by three wide. He ran pipes through it, warmed, presumably, by gas. More ambitious than I venture to recommend. In this miniature structure, says Mr. Castle, with liberal supplies of water, the owner succeeded in growing in a smoky district of London. I will not quote the amazing list of fine things, but it numbers twenty-five species, all the most delicate and beautiful of the stove-kinds. If so much could be done under such circumstances, what may rightly be called difficult in the cultivation of orchids? Chapter 4. Cool Orchids This is a subject which would interest every cultured reader, I believe. Every householder, at least, if he could be brought to understand that it lies well within the range of his practical concerns. But the public has still to be persuaded. It seems strange to the expert that delusions should prevail when orchids are so common and so much talked of, but I know by experience that the majority of people even among those who love their garden regard them as fantastic and mysterious creations designed to all seeming for the greater glory of pedants and millionaires. I try to do my little part, as occasion serves, in correcting this popular error and spreading a knowledge of the facts. It is no less than a duty. If every human being should do what he can to promote the general happiness, it would be downright wicked to leave one's fellow-men under the influence of hallucinations that debath them from the most charming of quiet pleasures. I suspect also that the misapprehension of the public is largely due to the conduct of experts in the past. It was a rule with growers formerly avowed among themselves to keep their little secrets. When Mr. B. S. Williams published the first edition of his excellent book forty years ago, he fluttered his colleagues sadly. The plain truth is that no class of plant can be cultivated so easily, as none are so certain to repay the trouble as the cool orchids. Nearly all the genera of this enormous family have species which grow in a temperate climate, if not in the temperate zone. At this moment, in fact, I recall but two exceptions, vander and failingopsis. Many more there are, of course. Nothing ever occurred to me while I wrote the last six words, but in the small space at command I must cling to generalities. We have at least a hundred genera which will flourish anywhere if the frost be excluded, and as for species, a list of two thousand would not exhaust them probably. But a reasonable man may content himself with the great classes of Adontoglossum, Oncidium, Cipropidium, and Lacaste among the varieties of these which no one has ventured to calculate, perhaps, he may spend a happy existence. They have every charm, foliage always green, a graceful habit, flowers that rank among the masterworks of nature. The poor man who succeeds with them in his modest bit of glass has no cause to envy D.Vay's his flaunting cat layers and fox brush irides. I should like to publish it in capitals, but nine in ten of those suburban householders who read this book may grow the loveliest of orchids, if they can find courage to try. Adontoglossums stand first, of course. I know not where to begin the list of their supreme merits. It will seem perhaps a striking advantage to many that they burst into flower at any time as they chance to ripen. I think that the very perfection of culture is discounted somewhat in this instance. The gardener who keeps his plants at the napeless ultra stage brings them all into bloom within the space of a few weeks. Thus in the great collections there is such a show during April, May and June as the gardens of paradise could not excel and hardly a spike in the cool house for the rest of the year. At a large establishment this signifies nothing. When the Adontoglossums go off other things come on with equal regularity. But the amateur with his limited assortment misses every bloom. He has no need for anxiety with this genus. It is their instinct to flower in spring, of course, but they are not pedantic about it in the least. Some tiny detail overlooked here and there absolutely unimportant to health will retard fluorescence. Which might very well happen that the own over dozen pots had one blooming every month successively and that would mean two spikes open for with care most Adontoglossums last above four weeks. Another virtue shared by others of the cool class in some degree is their habit of growing in winter. They take no rest all the year round their young bulbs are swelling, graceful foliage lengthening, roots pushing until the spike demands a concentration of all their energy. But winter is the most important time. I think any man will see the peculiar blessing of this arrangement. It gives interest to the long dull days when other plant life is at a standstill. It furnishes material for cheering meditations on a Sunday morning. Is that a trifle? And at this season the pursuit is joy unmixed. We feel no anxious questionings as we go about our daily business. Whether the placenza ox or forgot to remind Mary when she went out to pull the blinds down, whether Mary followed the instructions if given, whether those confounded patent ventilators have snapped to again. Greenfly does not harass us. Once arranging a day and one watering per week suffice. Truly these are not grave things but the issue at stake is precious. We enjoy the boon of relief proportionately. Very few of those who grow Donto Glossums know much about the trade or care seemingly. It is a curious subject, however. The genus is American exclusively. It ranges over the continent from the northern frontier of Mexico to the southern frontier of Peru, accepting, to speak roughly, the empire of Brazil. This limitation is odd. It cannot be due to temperature simply for upon the one hand we receive Sofranotis, a very cool genus from Brazil and several of the coolest cat layers. Upon the other, a Donto Glossum rois liae, a very hot species, and ovexilarium, most decidedly warm, flourish up to the boundary. Why these should not step across, even if their mountain sisters refuse companionship with the Sofranotis, is a puzzle. Elsewhere, however, they are bound. Collectors distinctly foresee the time when all the districts they have worked, up to this, will be exhausted, but South America contains a prodigious number of square miles, and a days march from the track carries one into terror incognita. Still, the end will come. The English demand has stripped all provinces, and now all the civilized world is entering into competition. We are sadly assured that a Donto Glossums carried off will not be replaced for centuries. Most other genera of orchid propagates so freely that wholesale depredations are made good in very few years, for reasons beyond our comprehension as yet. The Donto Glossums stand in different case. No one in England has raised a plant from seed. That, we may venture to say definitely. Mr. Cookson and Mr. Veitch, perhaps others also, have obtained living germs, but they died inconsonently. Frenchmen aided by the climate have been rather more successful. Monsieur's Blur and Moro have both flowers seedling a Donto Gloss. Monsieur Jacob, who takes charge of Monsieur Edmund de Rothschild's orchids at Armand-Villiers, has a considerable number of young plants. The reluctance of a Donto Gloss to propagate is regarded as strange. It supplies a constant theme for discussion among orchidologists. But I think that if we look more closely, it appears consistent with other facts known. For among importations of every genus but this and Cipropidium, a plant bearing its seed capsules is frequently discovered. But I cannot hear of such an incident in the case of a Donto Glossums. They have been arriving in scores of thousands, year by year, for half a century almost, and scarcely anyone recollects observing a seed capsule. This shows how rarely they fertilise in their native home. When that event happens, the Edonto Glossum is yet more prolific than most, and the germs, of course, are not so delicate under the natural conditions. But the moral to be drawn is that a country once stripped will not be reclothed. I interpolate here a profound observation of Mr. Rösel. That wonderful man remarked that a Donto Glossums grow upon branches thirty feet above the ground. It is rare to find them at thirty-five feet, rarer at twenty-five feet. At greater and less heights they do not exist. Here, doubtless, we have the secret of their reluctance to fertilise, but I will offer no comments, because the more one reflects, the more puzzling it becomes. Evidently the seed must be carried above and must fall below that limit, under circumstances which, to our apprehension, seem just as favourable as those at the altitude of thirty feet. But they do not germinate. Upon the other hand, a Donto Glossums show no such daintiness of growth in our houses. They flourish at any height, if the general conditions be suitable. Mr. Rösel discovered a secret nevertheless, and in good time we shall learn further. To the Royal Horticultural Society of England belongs the honour of first importing orchids methodically and scientifically. Monsieur Weir and Fortune, I believe, were their earliest employees. Another was Theodore Hartwig, who discovered a Donto Glossum crisper malexandre in 1842. But he sent home only dried specimens. From these, Lindley described and clasped the plant, aided by the sketch of a Spanish or Peruvian artist Tagala. A very curious mistake Lindley fell into on either point. The scientific error does not concern us, but he represented the colouring of the flower as yellow with a purple centre. So Tagala painted it, and his drawing survives. It is an odd little story. He certainly had Hartwig's bloom before him, and that certainly was white. But then again yellow Alexandries have been found since that day. For the Horticultural Society we are indebted, not alone for the discovery of this wonder, but also for its introduction. John Weir was travelling for them when he sent living specimens in 1862. It is not surprising that botanists thought it knew after what has been said. As such, Mr. Bateman named it after the young Princess of Wales, a choice most appropriate in every way. Then a few wealthy amateurs took up the business of importation, such as the Duke of Devonshire, but the trade came to see presently that there was money in this new fashion, and imported so vigorously that the Society found its exertions needless. Monsieur Roleson of Tooting, Monsieur Veitch of Chelsea, and Monsieur Lowe of Clapton distinguished themselves from the outset. Of these three firms, one is extinct, the second has taken up and made its own the fascinating study of hybridisation among orchids, and the third still perseveres. Twenty years ago nearly all the great nurserymen in London used to send out their travellers, but they have mostly dropped the practice, correspondence forward a shipment from time to time. The expenses of the collector are heavy, even if you draw no more than his due, and the temptation to make up a fancy bill cannot be resisted by some weak mortals. Then grave losses are always probable. In the case of South American importations, certain. It has happened not once, but a hundred times, that the toil of months, the dangers, the sufferings, and the hard money expended go to absolute waste. Twenty or thirty thousand plants or more an honest man collects, brings them down from the mountains or the forests, packs carefully, and ships. The freight alone may reach from three to eight hundred pounds. I have personally known instances when it exceeded five hundred. The cases arrive in England, and not a living thing therein. A steamship company may reduce its charge under such circumstances, but again and again it will happen that the speculator stands out of a thousand pounds clean when his boxes are opened. He may hope to recover it on the next cargo, but that is still a question of luck. No wonder that men whose business is not confined to orchids, withdrew from the risks of importation, returning to roses and lilies and daffodown dillies with a new enthusiasm. There is another point also which has varying force with different characters. The loss of life among those men who go out collecting has been greater proportionately than in any class of which I have heard. In former times, at least, they were chosen haphazard among intelligent and trustworthy employees of the firm. The honest youth, not very strong perhaps in an English climate, went bravely forth into the unhealthiest parts of unhealthy lands where food is very scarce and very, very rough, where he was wet through day after day for weeks at a time, where the fever of varied sort comes as regularly as Sunday, where, from month to month, he found no one with whom to exchange a word. I could make out a startling list of the martyrs of orchidology among Mr. Sander's collectors alone, Falconberg perished at Panama, Claboche in Mexico, Ondres at Rio Hacha, Wallace in Ecuador, Schroeder in Sierra Leone, Arnold on the Orinoco, Diggins in Brazil, Brown in Madagascar. Sir Trevor Lawrence mentions a case where the zealous explorer waited for a fortnight up to his middle in mud, searching for a plant he had heard of. I have not identified this instance of devotion, but we know of rarities which would demand perseverance and sufferings almost equal to secure them. If employers could find the heart to tempt a fellow creature into such risks, the chances are that it would prove bad business. For to discover a new or valuable orchid is only the first step in a commercial enterprise. It remains to secure the article, to bring it safely into a realm that may be called civilized, to pack it and superintend its transport through the sweltering lowland to a shipping place. If the collector sickened after finding his prize, these cares are neglected more or less. If he die, all comes to a full stop. Thus it has to be. All comes to a full stop. Thus it happens that the importing business has been given up by one firm after another. Adon de Glossums, as I said, belonged to America, to the mountainous parts of the continent in general. Though it would be wildly rash to pronounce which is the loveliest of orchids, no man with eyes would dispute that O. Crispum Alexandri is the queen of this genus. She has her home in the states of Columbia and those who seek her make Bogota their headquarters. If the collector wants the broad petaled variety, he goes about ten days to the southward before commencing operations. If the narrow petaled, about two days to the north, on muleback, of course. His first care on arrival in the neighborhood, which is unexplored ground, if such he can discover, is to hire a wood, that is, a track of mountain clothed more or less with timber. I have tried to procure one of these leases, which must be odd documents, but orchid farming is a close and secret business. The arrangement concluded in legal form. He hires natives, twenty or fifty or a hundred, as circumstances advise, and sends them to cut down trees, building meantime a wooden stage of sufficient length to bear the plunder expected. This is used for cleaning and drying the plants brought in. Afterwards, if he be prudent, he follows his lumbermen to see that their indolence does not shirk the big trunks, which give extra trouble naturally, though they yield the best and largest return. It is a terribly wasteful process. If we estimate that a good tree has been felled for every three scraps of a daunter-glossum which are now established in Europe, that will be no exaggeration. And for many years past they have been arriving by hundreds of thousands annually. But there is no alternative. An European cannot explore that green wilderness overhead, if he could, his accumulations would be so slow and costly as to raise the proceeds to an impossible figure. The natives will not climb, and they would tear the plants to bits. Timber has no value in these parts as yet, but the day approaches when government must interfere. The average yield of a daunter-glossum crispum per tree is certainly not more than five large and small together. Once upon a time Mr. Kerback recovered fifty-three at one felling, and the incident has grown into a legend. Two or three is the usual number. Upon the other hand, fifty or sixty of o-glory-ossum, comparatively worthless, are often secured. The cutters receive a fixed price of sixpence for each orchid without reference to species or quality. When his concession is exhausted the traveller overhauls the produce carefully, throwing away those damaged pieces which would ferment in the long hot journey home and spoil the others. When all are clean and dry he fixes them with copper wire on sticks which are nailed across boxes for transport. Long experience has laid down rules for each detail of this process. The sticks, for example, are one inch in diameter, fitting into boxes two feet three inches wide, two feet deep, neither more nor less. Then the long file of mules sets out for Bogota perhaps ten days march, each animal carrying two boxes. A burden ridiculously light, but on such tracks it is dimension which has to be considered. On arrival at Bogota the cases are unpacked and examined for the last time, restowed and consigned to the mule tears again. In six days they'd reach Honda on the Magdalena River where until lately they were embarked on rafts for a journey of fourteen days to Savanilla. At the present time an American company has established a service of flat-bottomed steamers which cover the distance in seven days, thus reducing the risks of the journey by one-half. But they are still terrible. Not a breath of wind stirs the air at that season for the collector cannot choose his time. The boxes are piled on deck. Even the pitiless sunshine is not so deadly as the stewing heat below. He has a score of blankets to cover them on which he lays a thatch of palm leaves and all day long he sows his the pile with water. But too well the poor fellow knows that mischief is busy down below. Another anxiety possesses him too. It may very well be that on arrival at Savanilla he has to wait days in that sweltering atmosphere for the Royal Mail steamer and when it comes in his troubles do not cease. For the stowage of the precious cargo is vastly important. On deck it will almost certainly be injured by salt water in the hold it will ferment. Amid ships it is apt to be baked by the engine fire. Whilst writing I learn that Mr. Sander has lost 267 cases by this latter mishap, as is supposed. So utterly hopeless is their condition that he will not go to the expense of overhauling them. They lie at Southampton and to anybody who will take them away all parties concerned will be grateful. The expense of making this shipment a reader may judge from the hints given. The Royal Mail Company's charge for freight from Manzanilla is £750. I could give an incident of the same class yet more startling with reference to fallionopsis. It is proper to add that the most enterprising of assurance companies do not yet see their way to accept any kind of risks in the orchid trade. Importers must bear all the burden. To me it seems surprising that the plants can be sold so cheap all things considered. Many persons think and hope that prices will fall and that may probably happen with regard to some genera but the shrewdness of those very shrewd men who conduct the business all look for a rise. Adontoglossum Harianum always reminds me in such an odd association of ideas that everyone has experienced, of a thunderstorm. The contrast of its intense brown blotches with the azure throat and the broad snowy lip affect me somehow with admiring oppression. Very absurd, but To call this most striking flower Harianum is grotesque. The public is not interested in those circumstances which give the name significance for a few and if there be any flower which demands an expressive title it is this in my judgment. Possibly it was some Indian report which had slipped his recollection that led Rözel to predict the discovery of a new Adontoglott unlike any other in the very district where Adontoglossum Harianum was found after his death though the story is quoted as an example of that instinct which guides the heaven-born collector. The first plants came unannounced in a small box sent by Senor Pantocca of Columbia to Messier Horseman in 1885 and they were flowered next year by Messier Weich. The dullest who sees it can now imagine the excitement when this marvel was displayed coming from an unknown habitat. Rözel's prediction occurred to many of his acquaintance I have heard but Mr. Sander had a living faith in his old friend's sagacity. Fourth with he dispatched a collector to the spot which Rözel had named but not visited and found the treasure. The legends of Orchidology will be gathered one day perhaps and if the editor be competent his volume should be almost as interesting to the public as to the cognoscenti. I have been speaking here the two of Columbian Adontoglossums which are reckoned among the hardiest of their class along with them in the same temperature grow the cool mass devaliers which probably are the most difficult of all to transport. There was once a grand consignment of Mastivalia schlemii which Mr. Rözel dispatched on his own account. It contained 27,000 plants of this species representing at that time a fortune. Mr. Rözel was the luckiest and most experienced of collectors and he took special pains with this unique shipment. Among 27,000 two bits survived when the cases were opened. The agent hurried them off to Stevens's auction rooms and sold them forthwith at 40 guineas each. But I must stick to Adontoglossums. Speculative as is the business of importing the northern species to gather those of Peru and Ecuador is almost desperate. The roads of Columbia are good the population civilized convenience is abound if we compare that region with the Orchid bearing territories of the south. There is a fortune to be secured by anyone who will bring to market a lot of Adontoglossum nevium in fair condition. Its habitat is perfectly well known. I am not aware that it has a delicate constitution but no collector is so rash or so enthusiastic as to try that adventure again now that its perils are understood and no employer is so reckless as to urge him. The true variety of O. Halei stands in much the same case. To obtain it the explorer must march in the bed of a torrent and on the face of a precipice alternately for an uncertain period of time with a river to cross about every day and he has to bring back his loaded mules or Indians over the same pathless waste. The Roraima mountain begins to be regarded as quite easy travel for the Orchid hunter nowadays. If I mention that the canoe work on this route demands 32 portages, 32 loadings and unloadings of the cargo, the reader can judge what a difficult road must be. Ascending the Roraima, Mr. Dressel, collecting for Mr. Sander, lost his herbarium in the Esaquibo River. Savants alone are able to estimate the awful nature of the crisis when a comrade loses his grip of that treasure. For them it is needless to add that everything else went to the bottom. One is tempted to linger among the Adontoglottes, though time is pressing. In no class of Orchids are natural hybrids so mysterious and frequent. Sometimes one can detect the parentage. In such cases doubtless the crossing occurred but a few generations back. As a rule however such plants are the result of breeding in and in from age to age causing all manner of delightful complications. How many can trace the lineage of Mr. Bull's Adontoglossum delectabile? Ivory white fringed with rose strikingly blotched with red and showing a golden labellum. Or Mr. Sander's Adontoglossum Alberti Edwardi which has a broad soft margin of gold about its stately petals. Another is rosy white closely splashed with pale purple and dotted round the edge with spots of the same tinge so thickly placed that they resemble a fringe. Such marvels turn up in an importation without the slightest warning. No peculiarity betrays them until the flowers open when the lucky purchaser discovers that a plant for which he gave perhaps a shilling is worth an indefinite number of guineas. Lycaste also is a genus peculiar to America such a favourite among those who know its merits that the species Lycaste skinnari is called the drawing room flower. Professor Reichenbach observes in his superb volume that many people utterly ignorant of orchids grow this plant in their miscellaneous collection. I speak of it without prejudice for to my mind the bloom is stiff, heavy and poor in colour but there are tremendous exceptions. In the first place Lycaste skinnari alba the pure white variety beggars all description. Its great flower seems to be sculpted in the snowiest of transparent marble. That stolid pretentious hair which offends one offends me at least in the coloured examples becomes virginal dignity in this case. Then of the normal types there are more than a hundred variations recognised some with lips as deep in tone and as smooth in texture as velvet of all shades from maroon to brightest crimson. It will be understood that I allude to the common forms in depreciating this species. How vast is the difference between them their commercial value shows plants of the same size and the same species range from three shinnings in six months to thirty-five guineas or more indefinitely. Lycastes are found in the woods of Guatemala especially and I have heard no such adventures in the gathering of them as attend or daunter blossoms easily obtained easily transported and remarkably easy to grow of course they are cheap. A man must really give his mind to it to kill a Lycaste. This counts for much no doubt in the popularity of the genus but it has plenty of other virtues. Lycaste skinnari opens in the depths of winter and all the rest I think in the dull months. Then they are profuse of bloom throwing up half a dozen spikes in some species a dozen from a single bulb and the flowers last a prodigious time. Their extraordinary thickness in every part enables them to withstand bad air and changes of temperature so that ladies keeps them on a drawing room table night and day for months without change perceptible. Mr. Williams' names and instance where a Lycaste skinnari bought in full bloom on February the 2nd was kept in a sitting room till May the 18th and the purchaser took it back still handsome. I have heard cases more surprising. Of species somewhat less common there is Lycaste aromatica a little gem which throws up an indefinite number of short spikes each crowned with a greenish-yellow triangular sort of cup deliciously scented. I am acquainted with no flower that excites such enthusiasm among ladies who fancy Monsieur Liberty's style of toilette. This sad experience tells me that ten commandments or twenty will not restrain them from appropriating it. Lycaste cruente is almost as tempting as for Lycaste lucante an exquisite combination of pale green and snow white it ranks as Lycaste skinnari alba as a thing too beautiful for words this species has not been long introduced and at the moment it is dear proportionately. There is yet another virtue of the Lycaste which appeals to the expert it lends itself readily to hybridization this most fascinating pursuit attracts few amateurs as yet and the professionals have little time or inclination for experiments they naturally prefer to make such crosses as are almost certain to pay thus it comes about that the hybridization of Lycastes has been attempted but recently and none of the seedlings so far as I can learn have flowered they have been obtained however in abundance not only from direct crossing but also from alliance with Zygopetalam, Anguloa and Maxillaria.