112 ABOUT ORCHIDS. 
Island species are doomed, unless, like Lelza 
elegans, they have inaccessible crags on which 
to find refuge. It is only a question of time; but 
we may hope that Governments will interfere 
before it is too late. Already Mr. Burbidge has 
suggested that “some one” who takes an interest 
in orchids should establish a farm, a plantation, 
here and there about the world, where such plants 
srow naturally, and devote himself to careful 
hybridization on the spot. “One might make as 
much,” he writes, “by breeding orchids as by 
breeding cattle, and of the two, in the long run, I | 
should prefer the orchid farm.” This scheme will 
be carried out one day, not so much for the purpose 
of hybridization as for plain “ market-gardening ;” 
and the sooner the better. 
The prospect is still more dark for those who 
believe—as many do—that no epiphytal orchid 
under any circumstances can be induced to establish 
itself permanently in our greenhouses as it does at 
home. Doubtless, they say, it is possible to grow 
them and to flower them, by assiduous care, upon 
a scale which is seldom approached under the 
rough treatment of Nature. But they are dying 
from year to year, in spite of appearances. That 
it is so in a few cases can hardly be denied ; but, 
seeing how many plants which have not changed 
