About Orchids A Chat

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

gathered to the feast; geraniums and pelargoniums 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

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 villanies 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,

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 Stevens' Auction Rooms one day to buy bulbs, I saw a Cattleya Mossi?, 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

ou sold me a Cattleya

p half a hundred loose sheets of figures, as calm and sure as a

r dear, wasn'

business, sir

shed plant of Cattleya Mossi?

supply as many as you are l

as 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 Odontoglossums for 8s. 6d. They were small bits, but perfect in condition. Of the fifty-three pots they made, not one, I think, has been lost. I sold t

ood 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

tiny hole spurts forth a jet, which in ten 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 five thousand species in cultivation, of which an alarming number demand 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 especial I would encourage. Perfection is always a noble aim; but orchids do not exact it-far from that! The dear creatures will struggle to fulfil yo

a single lizard's run of earth. That space is enough to yield endless pleasure, amusement, and indeed profit,