COOL ORCHID GROWING. 



INTRODUCTION. 



WHEN Orchids were first imported into this country, from 

 tropical and subtropical regions, an idea that they all required 

 excessive heat to grow them, appears to have been promulgated 

 and accepted as gospel truth by horticulturists of all classes. 

 To the earlier Orchid-growers it would appear to have been a 

 matter of but little moment where a plant might have come from, 

 or under what climatic conditions it grew in its native habitat 

 The Orchids under their management might come from the 

 humid valleys of the Indian archipelago, the arid regions of 

 South or Western Africa, the mountain chains of Mexico or 

 Peru, or even the snow line of the towering Andes^ but their 

 treatment was the same, and they were placed in the hottest 

 temperature at command ; and even now the highest tempera- 

 ture often means the driest, and this was specially so under 

 the old flue system of heating. Under these adverse conditions 

 we can hardly wonder that many of the newly imported 

 Orchids died in a few months, more or less, after their intro- 

 duction. Now and then, however, they produced a few 

 flowers, often the last effort of expiring nature, and scarcely 

 properly developed ; still their delicate colours and grateful 

 fragrance soon began to be spoken of from mouth to mouth, 

 as they flowered at intervals in the early collections. At one 

 time it would be the celebrated Loddiges who would summons 



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