COLLECTING ORCHIDS. 



BY JOHN E. LAGER, SUMMIT, NEW JERSEY. 



Delivered before the Society, January 26, 1907. 



There are many things intermixed with orchid collecting that 

 to many people seem out of place ; yet, often on these various things 

 may depend the success of several months of labor. 



In the countries where the orchids flourish ever}i:hing is different 

 from what it is in the northern latitudes — climate, people, and the 

 invariable lack of transportation, except by mules or oxen, or by 

 canoes, or rafts on the rivers. 



I particularly refer to conditions such as they are in South America. 

 (The East Indies it has not been my fortune to see). Thus, in 

 short, an orchid collector's life is not an easy one by any means; 

 even under the best of conditions. There are, of course, several 

 kinds of collectors; some have it or take it comparatively easy. 

 There is, for instance, the man who is sent out by some house to 

 secure a certain kind of plant ; to get so many boxes full and return 

 home. The locality in which to obtain the plants is possibly 

 indicated to him, and the man as a rule follows the beaten tracks 

 or highways to some town or village where he makes arrangements 

 for a certain quantity of plants and returns home; the trip lasting 

 six months; possibly eight or nine months. He has obtained the 

 plants and let us hope they arrived at their destination in good con- 

 dition and everybody satisfied. This kind of a collector is the one 

 who has the easiest time, but he will know very little of the country, 

 its nature, its geography and its flora in general, and he is not the 

 man to find new fields. He will go where some one else has been 

 before and opened up the way, if he changes place at all. 



The other man is one who is in love with his work and one who 

 wants to see the marvels of the Creator in all their splendor and to 

 satisfy this desire he must undergo untold hardships. No beaten 



