56 ABOUT ORCHIDS. 
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 ten, 
and fairly in nineteen out of twenty. _Neverthe- 
less, it is a maxim with growers that Phalcenopsis 
should never be transferred from a situation where 
they are doing well. Their hooks are sacred as 
that on which Horace suspended his lyre. Nor 
could a reasonable man think this fancy extrava- 
gant, seeing the evidence beyond dispute which 
warns us that their health is governed by circum- 
stances 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 Phalcenopsis and the rest have no more practical 
importance for the class I would persuade than 
have the terrors of the deep for a Thames water- 
man. How many thousanl 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 
despair. The poor man now contents himself with 
anything that will keep tolerably green and show 
some spindling flower. The fact is, that hardy 
