150 ABOUT ORCHIDS. 
country suitable should establish a “farm,” or 
rather a market-garden, and grow the precious 
things for exportation. It is an excellent idea, 
and when tea, coffee, sugar-cane, all the regular 
crops of the East and West Indies, are so depre- 
ciated by competition, one would think that some 
planters might adopt it. Perhaps some have ; it 
is too early yet for results. Upon inquiry I hear 
of a case, but it is not encouraging. One of Mr. 
Sander’s collectors, marrying when on service in 
the United States of Colombia, resolved to follow 
Mr. Burbidge’s advice. He set up his “ farm” 
and began “hybridizing” freely. No man living 
is better qualified as a collector, for the hero of 
this little tale is Mr. Kerboch, a name familiar 
among those who take interest in such matters ; 
but I am not aware that he had any experience in 
growing orchids. To start with hybridizing seems 
very ambitious—too much of a short cut to for- 
tune. However, in less than eighteen months 
Mr. Kerbach found it did not answer, for reasons 
unexplained, and he begged to be reinstated in 
Mr. Sander’s service. It is clear, indeed, that the 
orchid-farmer of the future, in whose success I 
firmly believe, will be wise to begin modestly, 
cultivating the species he finds in his neighbour- 
hood. It is not in our greenhouses alone that 
