318 TraJisnctiuns of the Loiuhm TTorficultwal Socic/t/. 



had a little experience in raising ap})le.s from seed knows this 

 to 1)0 lact ; and, indeed, if it were not so, the general analogy 

 between apple trees and other vegetables wonld not be 

 conijik'te. 



" It would seem," the author observes, "that much of the 

 peculiar flavour of fruit depends upon the leaf; and whatever 

 determines the first organisation of this member of the tree, 

 must have considerable influence on its produce." The 

 naked ap])le pip, he thinks, contains too little of the saccharine 

 pabulum for the future tree. It was intended that the de- 

 caying apple should supply this pabulum ; and it is, there- 

 fore, suggested that the pip, when it is sown, " should be 

 inserted in fruit of the same kind, or in mould enriched by 

 an admixture of decayed apples." The advice is rational, and 

 it would be very desirable to institute an experiment to deter- 

 mine the comparative results of the practice. The reverend 

 author states, that, a i'ew years ago, he put some apple pips 

 into the same furrow with a quantity of decayed apples, and 

 that the fruit of the seedlings thus raised has been of good 

 flavour; but this may be from the parentage of the seedlings, 

 independently of any other cause. 



4. Upoit the Cidlivation of Epiphytes of the O'rchis Tribe. By 

 John Lindlcy, Esq. F.R.S. &c., Assistant Secretary. Read 

 May 18. 1830. 



This class of plants is comparatively new to Europe, 

 liaving been generally speedily lost after their introduction. 

 The Vanilla seems to have been almost the only species that 

 was known in England in the time of Miller, and little more 

 than twenty were to be found in the Kew Garden during the 

 last ten years of the last century. Not more than twelve or 

 fourteen species had been added to the same garden, in the 

 first thirteen years of the present centui-y ; and only nineteen 

 species are mentioned as in the Berlin Botanic Garden, one 

 of the richest in Europe, in 1822. 



It was suj^posed that this want of success was owing to 

 some peculiai- difliculty in their cultivation; and it was there- 

 fore resolved that an attempt should be made to overcome 

 this difliculty, in the Chiswick Ciarden. Similar attempts, 

 before or about the same lime, were made in the stoves of 

 Messrs. Loddiges of Hackney, Messrs. Richard and Arnold 

 Harrison of Liverpool, Mr. Cattley of Barnet, and others; 

 so that the total number of species of this family of })lants 

 found in Britain at the time Mr. Lindley's paper was read, 

 was not less than 200; while the cataloiiue of the Paris Gar- 

 den, made up to 1829, enumerates only nineteen. W'e may 



