32 ORCHID HYBRIDS. 



seedlings at the flowering stage, and teach us about the 

 irregularities which may puzzle you on the way. You 

 gardeners are the right hands of the botanists, whether 

 the latter own up to it or not. 



A Word to the Patrons of Orchid Culture. 



With you, gentlemen, rests the problem of placing 

 our orchid culture on a high or a low standard. You 

 guard the coin to pay for the work performed, and you 

 supply the trading grower with the sinews to carry on 

 his experiments. Often as you have been taken in with 

 plants which were not by any means what they were repre- 

 sented to be, you have now, in regard to hybrids, the 

 means on hand to watch the silver-tongued, glib-mouthed 

 trader when he paints unto the bastard of his propa- 

 gating beds your honorable name. With all respect due 

 to those whose names have been employed, refuse the 

 use of your letters if they are to be handled indecently. 

 By the time we receive hybrids bedecked without inter- 

 ruption with Ashworthii, E. Ashworth, Ashworthiae, 

 Ashworthianum, the man who employs your attention 

 thus thinks very little of you. Wells, Wellsiae, W T ellsi- 

 ana, Oweiiii, Owenise, Owenianum: that sounds like the 

 reciting of the first lesson in Latin by a little shaver who 

 got mixed up at the sight of the threatening switch. If 

 blue blood is dragged forth to be made the laughing- 

 stock of scheming traders, ah well, who looks for any- 

 thing different! If we were raised like that imbred caste 

 to live on the lying flattery of hollow-boned menials, we 

 would be vain-glorious like they. We could not tell any 

 more whether the thousand Odontoglossum crispum we 

 bought for one guinea apiece were exchanged behind 

 our backs for the quick repotted smaller size than the 



