270 THE GARDENER. [June 



DENDROBIUM NOBILE. 



We propose giving tlie details of our mode of cultivating this beautiful 

 Orchid, for we have been singularly successful in its cultivation ; and as 

 it is very seldom seen in robust health, or producing the quality or the 

 quantity of flowers of which it is capable, we think we cannot do better 

 than tell everything we know connected with the cultivation of this 

 much-written-about, much-appreciated Dendrobium. 



To give minute details on the subjects taken up by nearly all 

 horticultural writers, is such a rare thing, that we feel we ought 

 to apologise for so doing in this particular instance. And yet those 

 papers which do so are of most value. We expect to find principles 

 and general directions only in such volumes as those written by B. S. 

 Williams, F. W. Burbidge, and many others ; for it is impossible to 

 describe every particular in octavo volumes of two or three hundred 

 pages : and indeed such would be out of place. In weekly or monthly 

 magazines we expect more ; and those who write for such, and 

 yet fail to give more, merely repeat what has been often better said 

 before. Why this should be, we do not understand. Possibly some 

 writers think details below them, or, understanding what they write 

 about themselves, think that all small matters ought to be known by 

 their readers — although only the vaguest hints are given, and these 

 often by no means plainly put. 



The plagiarism of horticultural writers is being continually talked 

 about ; but the evil does not abate. Few, indeed, imagine themselves 

 plagiarists, even when recasting what has been recast and re-repeated 

 hundreds of times for a generation or two. Surely there is enough 

 original experience to fill all our papers, if only writers would conde- 

 scend to tell us the little almost-nothings which yet make up the sum- 

 total of our everyday practice. We are told that drops make the 

 ocean, and grains of sand the mountain : just so in the case of horti- 

 cultural practice. Those who succeed attend to every little, and it is 

 by neglecting the littles that others fail. Those who essay to teach 

 should tell us all about the little steps, slips, jumps, by which they 

 have climbed the mountain called Difficulty. The ordinary readers 

 who get their horticultural knowledge from books and papers, too 

 frequently attempt success by bounding from stage to stage, instead 

 of feeling their way step by step. 



We hope the above will be taken partly as a broad hint to gardening 

 scribes, partly as an apology for details which may to adepts seem 

 whimsical and superfluous. 



But to return to our subject. When flowers are wanted from plants 

 of Dendrobium nobile at once, or within a year, flowering-plants must 

 be secured for commencing with. If telling success be the aim of the 

 cultivator, healthy, one-year-old, just-as-they-are-going-to-start, young 

 growths from off the base of old ones are to be preferred ; at least we 



