80 ON THE CULTURE OF ORCH1DEOUS PLANTS. 



taining the practice of most of the celebrated cultivators. I now possess 

 tight hundred and forty six specimens. Most of them I have purchased, 

 and in consequence I have carefully examined the soil in which I 

 have received the plants. The following system of management is 

 what I practise in general with all the kinds, and none can boast of 

 more healthy, or finer specimens for the period 1 have had them. 



In the specimens I have had from Messrs. Rollinson's of the Tooting 

 Nursery, I found a small garden pot inversely placed inside the pot in 

 which the plant was growing, of course it was a much smaller pot than 

 the pot which held the plant, around this small pot was placed two inch- 

 es deep of small boken potsherds. This forms a very efficient draining, 

 which is of great importance to a successful culture of the plants ; the 

 plants are grown in two parts of broken potsherd, with one of peat. I 

 have followed the same system of management as to potting, excepting 

 substituting one portion of sphagnum mors for one of the broken pots- 

 herds. I find the plant thrive better in this, than in that which Messrs. 

 Rollinson's plants were retained in. I observed that. Messrs. Rollinson's 

 mode of potting had been as follows. A small inverted pot, around 

 which were a good portion of largish potsherds, upon those a few smaller, 

 then a layer of peat in peices near an inch square, on the top of this 

 a layer of small potsherds, and so proceeding till the pot was filled, 

 finishing with the potsherds at the surface. Messrs. Rollinson's plants 

 look very healthy and grow vigorously. 



In heating by hot water there is the advantage of a moist atmosphere; 

 I have two open tanks from which is considerable evaporation. In 

 addition, I water the mossy surface between the plants twice a day, and 

 sprinkle them over the tops twice a day, during the season the plants 

 are in a growing condition, that is from February to November. I do 

 this with water that is warm, I do not give as much in these sprink- 

 lings as to wet the soil, but only to moisten the foliage. I keep the 

 temperature for the above named period, at seventy degrees by night, 

 and from seventy to eighty by day. At the season of rest, I keep the 

 temperature at sixty two by night, sixty eight by day. I have a quan- 

 tity of plants in baskets made of sticks, nailed together at the corners, 

 allowing spaces between the sticks, the roots protude through them. The 

 plants flourish well by this mode of treatment. 



I have grown for two seasons, several plants of Dendrobiums, Oncidi- 

 ums, and Epidendrums, secured to pieces of sycamore wood branches, 

 about five or six inches in diameter, I placed a quantity of sphagnum moss 

 against the wood, then the roots of the plant, and over them more of the 

 sphagnum, the whole secured by metallic wire. Some of them I have 



