t LWIVERSITY 

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STOVE ORCHIDS. 



GOOD collections of Orchids requiring stove treatment are 

 now very numerous in this country, and such is their beauty 

 that the number of cultivators is annually increasing. The skill 

 necessary to grow them displayed by English gardeners, shows 

 to no small extent what perseverance can accomplish in over- 

 coming difficulties that .at first seemed almost insuperable. Fifty 

 years ago exotic Orchids in this country were almost unknown 

 to gardeners, and it was only by studying their native habitats 

 and peculiar circumstances as to their mode of growing in exotic 

 climes, that has led to their successful culture. If any plant is 

 brought from foreign climes, where it grows in a dense, moist 

 forest, and is potted in any chance soil that may be handy, and 

 placed on a shelf in a dry stove exposed to the burning summer's 

 sun, it must soon languish and die. Such, no doubt, was the fate of 

 many of the orchideous plants collected and sent home without, 

 perhaps, a line to say under what peculiarities of climate or soil 

 it enjoyed in its native wild. However, some few flowered, and 

 their extreme elegance, curious forms, and singular appearance, 

 led to inquiries, which, when given faithfully by collectors, soon 

 led to a different mode of culture, and, finally, to that perfection 

 we now see displayed in our stoves and exhibitions. This success 

 has been the cause of a greater demand for them ; so much so, 

 that hundreds of species have been introduced, and the numbers 

 are increasing annually. 



As a natural consequence, information on their management 

 is in request, and one or two manuals have been published on 

 the subject. The first was published by T. C. Lyons, Esq., a 



