60 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 



warding the plants. The want of this knowledge often 

 results in the trouble the collector has taken being in 

 vain, and disappointment to the receiver who gets the 

 dead plants and has to tell his correspondent the sad tale 

 of failure. 



Orchids should be gathered and forwarded during their 

 resting season, and with a sufficient time between their 

 being sent off and their natural growing season to allow of 

 the period of their transit being made before their resting 

 season expires. This rule is often needlessly violated by 

 those who are settled in the district from whence they are 

 sending the Orchids, and who could easily wait until the 

 resting season comes round. For those who are travelling 

 and have to take the Orchids when they can and in whatever 

 condition they may be, however, there is some excuse, and 

 by carefully forwarding the plants, even although at the 

 wrong season, many may get them over alive. Residents 

 in the tropics often grow a collection of Orchids, bringing 

 to the gardens around their residences the plants collected 

 in distant parts of their districts. These growers have a 

 notion that cultivated plants are the best to send their cor- 

 respondents, therefore, although they could collect fresh 

 plants, they think it safer to send those in their own gardens. 

 These are the very worst plants to travel. They are usually 

 collected in high localities, and their sojourn in a garden 

 results in lowered vitality, which explains why a large pro- 

 portion die during the journey to this country. 



Freshly collected plants, in whatever stage they may be, 

 are the best, the ideal conditions being to take the plants at 

 mid-resting season, to have the case to receive them beneath 

 the trees on which they are growing, to pack them off at 



