I>ecemtier 21, 1907 



HORTICULTURE 



816 



to "lay low" and take no ehanees while others profess 

 to expect a yolume of business that shall be an eye- 

 opener and sliarp rebuke to all pessimists. We surely 

 hope tliat the views of the latter will be overwhelmingly 

 vindicated and that when it becomes our duty to report 

 the results of the great holiday trade it shall be our 

 privilege te record that the courage of the enterprising 

 man who unliesitatingly advertised his holiday offers 

 and the confidence of him who freely f)urchased the 

 same will prove not to have been wasted. The report of 

 the Secretary of Agriculture showing that our agricul- 

 tural products for 1907 have reached the stupendous 

 value of seven and a lialf billion dollars— six hundred 

 and fifty million dollars in excess of last year's amount, 

 — should inspire us with the right kind of confidence. 

 We commend to the doubters the following extract from 

 James D. Law's poetic Tlianksgiving epistle to Hon. 

 James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture: 



■'Eight thousand million dollars— whew! 



From one year's toil accruing — 

 Our hats we must take off to you. 



Here's surely something doing! 

 Compared to that our Soulless Trusts 



As grasping as they're able 

 Get only but the crumbs and crusts 



From Uncle Samuel's table 



"No lasting harm may ever come 



To our expanding nation 

 While rural Industry can hum 



With such signification. 

 No danger of financial health 



Our favor'd land forsaking 

 With such illimitable wealth 



Before us for the taking. 



"Our farmers now can live like kings 



Without their fears and follies, 

 Enjoying all our finest things. 



From telephones to trolleys. 

 With liberty unknown to most 



Their lives are fat and sappy, 

 And when they get the Parcels Post 



They'll be completely happy." 



Vanda Varieties 



Vandas were the pride of the pioneers of Orehidology, 

 for they epitomized all that was typical in a fascinating 

 class of plants. Today they are somewhat oversliad- 

 owed; the public are more familiar with the graceful 

 odontoglossums or gorgeous cattleyas but the man who 

 grows orchids loves his vandas still. The ornamental 

 character of their foliage is very striking ; to see a house 

 full of specimen plants mounted with fresh moss, not- 

 ing the thick white aerial roots branching in all direc- 

 tions and drinking in the fragrance of the many-colored 

 flowers, is surely to taste the cup of exotic intoxication. 

 True epiphytes, they are chiefly natives of the East 

 Indies and Malayan islands and with one or two ex- 

 ceptions require stove treatment. They also need more 

 light than most orchids ; indeed many successful grow- 

 ers do not use shading at all, but this point will need 

 to be settled by one's location. V. teres, if it is to be 

 well-flowered, must never be shaded and should have an 

 end position to get the maximum of light. 



There are now about fifty species with their varie- 

 ties in cultivation and though all are beautiful, many 

 are not of such a free-growing and flowering character 

 as to make them popular outside a Botanic garden. The 

 following are the best varieties. Insignis is exceeding- 

 ly handsome and produces flowers in May or June on 

 racemes of -5 to 7 flowers, sepals and petals light brown 

 spotted with chocolate brown internally. Suavis is one 

 of the finest for exhibition purposes, the flowers large 

 and freely produced and deliciously fragrant, sepals 

 and petals white outside, spotted and barred with blood 

 purple witliin; it blooms at various seasons of the 

 year and lasts a long time in perfection. Tricolor also 

 makes a superb specimen for exhibition purposes; flow- 

 ers white outside, sepals and petals pale yellow spotted 

 \\'ith brownish red within. Tricolor has many varie- 

 ties but planilabris is the finest; flowers are larger and 

 brighter colored than the type and open at various sea- 

 sons. Sanderiana was introduced from the Philippines 

 in 1881 but is still somewhat rare; the flowers are the 

 largest in the gToup, dorsal sepals and petals pink, 

 slightly stained with buff yellow, lateral sepals pale 

 nankeen outside, within greenish yellow, reticulated 

 with dull crimson and opens in September or October. 

 Ccerulea is a somewhat "sticky" looking plant but this 

 is compensated for by the large spikes of flowers of pale 

 blue with lip deeper in color. It opens in the fall. It 

 should be hung up close to the glass where it may have 

 a current of pure air in the intermediate house. Kim- 

 balliana is a curious terete form which does well in the 

 cool end of the cattleya house and is adapted for basket 

 culture, giving a long rest in winter. The flowers are 

 white with deep purple lip and open in October or 

 November. 



Vandas delight in a moist temperature and when 

 grown in pots should be stood on- pots inverted into 

 large pans. The stove varieties should have a tempera- 

 ture of not less than 70 deg. by day and 60 at night 

 in winter. A leggy specimen may be cut down and 

 sunk deep into pots with nothing but crocks and char- 

 coal round it, and a deep surface of good sphagnum ; 

 keep shaded and syringed until new roots appear. 



u 



l>vxV- 



A New Rose 



(See Frontispiece.) 



Our frontispiece this week is a portrait of another 

 new rose, a seedling raised by John Cook of Baltimore. 

 It is a hybrid tea, the result of reerossing three genera- 

 tions of Mr. Cook's seedlings. The color is a soft sal- 

 mon pink which lightens up beautifully as the bud 

 opens. Tlie flowers are large and very strongly per- 

 fumed and the growth is sturdy and Mr. Cook states 

 that plants set in June have produced from fifteen to 

 twenty blooms each, to date. It has not yet been 

 named but is known as No. 294. 



