40 orchids: how to grow them successfully. 



spring thoy will grow faster and surer if taken away from the 

 parent plant and potted into small pots or baskets. 



The propagation of the Dendrobium is easy, but is not practised 

 so much as would be the case if many of the most beautiful 

 varieties were not imported in such large quantities, strong plants 

 being obtainable at such low prices as to render propagation 

 unnecessary, imless in the case of an extraordinary good variety or 

 a garden hybrid. When it is desired that young stock should be 

 raised of Dendrobiums, the old pseudo bulbs, which it is found 

 may be cut away without injury to the plant, may be laid upon 

 sphagnum moss, placed on a shelf or some other suitable place, 

 and kept moist until the young growths appear, and in due time 

 these will form healthy young bulbs. 



INSECT LIFE, CLEANLINESS, AND EEMEDIES. 



Cleanliness is a gi'eat point in the cultivation of Orchids, as 

 well as with other plants, such as the removal of all rubbish from 

 under the stages or elsewhere. Whitewashing the walls once a 

 year, scrubbing the stages and pots occasionally, cleaning and 

 sponging the leaves of the plants, all helping to keep down insect 

 life, which, if unchecked, soon becomes very troublesome. There 

 are numerous kinds of insects which are enemies to the plants, and 

 for the wellbeing of the latter it is essential that all these pests 

 should be kept in check. A camel's hair brush and a piece of 

 sponge used by careful hands, and with clear soft water, are the 

 best and most effective tools with which to clean away insect life 

 from the plants. Insecticides, whether home made or otherwise, 

 are always more or less dangerous, and often lead to the rotting 

 away of the young growths of some of the more tender plants, 

 such as Chysis. Stanhopeas, Dendrobiums, and Phajus. 



Tobacco Water can be made by well soaking a half pound of 

 common twist tobacco in hot water, adding a half pound of soft soap, 

 which is sufficient for four gallons of water, and makes a capital 

 solution, which is both safe to use and effective, and into which the 

 plant may be dipped for a few seconds when affected by thrip or 

 aphis, taking care that the water is of the same temperature as 

 the house. If the solution is very strong it will be safest to dip 

 the plant into clean water after the lapse of a few minutes, but if 

 of the proper strength the solution may bo allowed to dry on it. 

 The danger to be avoided is the lodgment of any portion in the 



