202 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



LJuiy, 



wherever an overlap occurs, and save leaks from 

 good-for-nothing putty. In these villainous days 

 of frauds and adulterations, it is impossible to 

 get any pure materials for making putty, and 

 the miserable compound soon cracks and leaves 

 the roof full of holes, and the glass gets loose and 

 and flies off" with every high wind. I believe 

 narrow strips of rubber on the shoulder of the 

 rabbet and under the glass would make 

 it perfectly tight, and I know the water will not 

 run in where the panes of glass come together at 

 the ends. The elasticity of the rubber would 

 press the glass up tightly against the points or 

 tacks, and thus keep all close, even when hot 

 weather shrinks and dries the sash and so much 

 glass gets loose. 



I wish some one would explain to me the 

 philosophy, sense or reason of our being told to 

 set our line of pipes so that there shall be a rise 

 of a foot or eight inches from the boiler to the 

 expansion tank, one-third or one-fourth of the 

 length, and then a gradual decline to the boiler. 

 I always had an idea that water would run be^it 

 down hill, and think so yet, but here it has to 

 run up hill part of the way. I am of the opinion 

 that the best place for the expansion tank, and 

 consequently highest point, would be close to 

 the boiler; there it would be all down hill work. 

 I am confirmed in this belief by seeing the ar- 

 rangement of pipes in the Chicago Floral Co.'s 

 houses, where the flow expands into a large 

 tank, high over the boiler, and is carried over- 

 head through the potting and packing sheds, 

 and distributed through the various houses, all 

 on the downward flow. I was astonished at the 

 number of houses thus heated by one boiler. I, 

 therefore, have an idea to put my expansion 

 tank immediately over the boiler, raise my line 

 of pipes so as to gradually return from that point 

 to the lowest ; also to heat a propagating tank 

 from the overflow of the expansion when the 

 water gets warm. I am waiting to be enlight- 

 ened. 



MR. F. L. AMES' ORCHIDS. 



BY WM. FALCONER. 



Great in variety and in lavish profusion were 

 •the lovely orchid blossoms 1 saw at Mr. F, L. 

 Ames', at North Easton, the other day. The 

 Dendrobiums were especially gay and included 

 Ainsworthii, a beautiful hybrid between hetero- 

 carpum and nobile ; flowers white with deep 

 amaranth blotch on lip ; fifty-seven blooms on 



a plant in a 5-inch pan ; Findleyanum, an In- 

 dian species, with rich, purple tipped flowers, 

 having a yellow blotch on the lip ; splendid- 

 issimum, a hybrid between macrophyllum Hut- 

 toni and heterocarpum, flowers white, tipped 

 with purple, and with a deep maroon blotch on 

 the lip ; the highly fragrant heterocarpum, 

 with pseudo-bulbs twenty inches long and thirt)'- 

 two blossoms on a bulb; nobile pendulum, 

 more gorgeous, if possible, that the type; Hillii, 

 with racemes of creamy white fragrant flowers ; 

 crepidatum, white, tipped with pink, and yellow- 

 throated lip ; Wardianum, one of the finest and 

 most beautiful of orchids, and its white variety, 

 which, though distinct and fine, is not, in my 

 opinion, as good as the species ; luteolum, from 

 Moulmein, with a tuft of creamy flowers at the 

 end of the shoots; primulinum giganteum, pink 

 and white, larger and showier than the ordinary 

 form ; and other species and varieties, as showy 

 but commoner than these that I have men- 

 tioned. Among ahostof Cypripediums.asLowii, 

 Boxallii and C. Spicerianum (two plants), are in 

 bloom. The large, waxy-white upper sepal of 

 Spicerianum, this sterling novelty, shows more 

 strikingly among exotic Cypridediums than do 

 the long side petals of C. caudatum. Cattleya 

 Warscewiczii delicata, with a profusion of 6-inch 

 wide white to faintly purple-tinged blossoms is 

 the gayest in its class. Laslia flavahas yellowish 

 flowers, but it is not as pretty as some of the 

 more highly colored species, as anceps, or de- 

 sirable as the modestly hued but fragrant albida. 

 Cojlogyne flaccida, from Assam, though reck- 

 oned but a second-rate orchid, is quite prettily 

 draped in loose racemes of dull white blossoms, 

 that hang over the sides of the pot. Its com- 

 moner, but far more beautiful relative, C. cris- 

 tata, is here in snowy heaps. Dendrochilum 

 glumaceum has twenty airy racemes of fragrant 

 blossoms to a plant ; and among many other va" 

 rieties the white flowering Lycaste Skinneri — 

 one of the purest white blossomed orchids ex- 

 tant — is conspicuously in bloom. 



I will now pass to the "cool" orchid-house* 

 which is a ninety-four feet long lean-to, north- 

 facing structure, and contains one of, if not the 

 best grown collection of this class of orchids in 

 America. Most of the Indian and other tropi- 

 cal orchids in the winter time, when not hidden 

 with their gorgeous blossoms, are as "homely" 

 plants to the casual observer as are the Cactuses 

 of Mexico ; for instance the naked- stemmed 

 Dendrobiums, the ungainly Cattleyas, the rope- 



