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JUNE 1. 1J»05. 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



77 



Group of Cattleya Thayeriana, Raised by E. O. Orpet, South Lancaster, Mass. 



CATTLEYA THAYERIANA. 



This excellent cattleya was raised by 

 E. O. Orpet, superintendent gardener on 

 the E. V. E. Thay3r estate, South Lan- 

 caster, Mass., and is the result of cross- 

 ing C. intermedia with C. Schrcederse al- 

 ba. The cross was made April 4, 1896, 

 and the seed sown March 26, 1897. 

 There are now at South Lancaster some 

 ninety plant? in all, some of these be- 

 ing big specimens in 16-inch tubs. The 

 plant is a very vigorous grower, usually 

 making two sets of bulbs a year and 

 flowering both in spring and fall. The 

 photograph reproduced shows a group in 

 bloom at the end of March of the 

 present year. 



The flowers show a wonderful varia- 

 tion in colorings, hardly any two being 

 precisely alike. While some are almost 

 pure white, others are pale pink, with 

 no color on the lip, while some have a 

 lip of darkest amaranth. This variety 

 received a silver medal from the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society when first 

 exhibited. 



E. 0. Orpet, the raiser of this and 

 many other fine seedlings, is of English 

 birth, working at a number of first- 

 class places there before coming to 

 America. He has been at South Lancas- 

 ter some fifteen years, revolutionizing 

 his place since he took it in hand. His 

 first experiment in orchid hybridization 

 was made in 1895. He now has some 

 3,000 seedlings in various stages, includ- 

 ing some odontoglossums with leaf 

 points probably the only ones in the 

 United States, certainly the first we have 

 heard of. His future success with these 

 latter, if he succeeds in rearing them, 

 will be something of a triumph, as odon- 

 toglossums are especially difficult sub- 

 jects to handle, owing to our hot sum- 

 mers. Mr. Orpet has had excellent suc- 

 cess with them the past two or three 

 years, since giving them full winter sun 

 and growing them in a nortli house from 

 April to November. 



Mr. Orpet is still busy making prom- 

 ising and interesting crosses, using Soph- 

 ronitis grandiflora on cattleyas and 

 iKhas, these crosses being more difficult 

 to accomplish. His seedlings all show 

 wonderful vigor. A large proportion 

 flower twice a year and he is really never 

 without flower on some of them. There 

 would seem to be great possibilities in 



a race of American seedling cattleyas, 

 which possess a vigor and vitality far 

 superior to that of any of the imported 

 species. 



Seedlings from South Lancaster nave 

 been awarded several gold medals in Bos- 

 ton as well as a number of silver gilt 

 and silver medals and numerous certifi- 

 cates of merit. No other American 

 orchid hybridist has approached Mr. Or- 

 pet in success with cattleyas and Iselia 

 seedlings. W. N. Craig. 



SOME BUEBANK ACHIEVEMENTS. 



[A paper by Edwin Lonsdale, read at the 

 May meeting of the Florists' Club of Phila- 

 delphia.] 



Very entertaining articles are being pre- 

 pared for the magazines these days, one 

 <)f the most elaborate being by W. S. Har- 

 wood and which appeared in the March 

 and April numbers of the Century Maga- 

 zine. There is no doubt that Mr. Har- 

 wood is correct when he says that Mr. 

 Burbank has become the foremost man 

 in the world in the production of new 

 and interesting forms of fruits, trees, 

 flowers, vegetables, graFses and nuts. 



Mr. Burbank, when he had made up 

 his mind to make the improvement of 

 vegetation his life work, had the good 

 judgment to make California his home 

 and the scenes of his world famous ex- 

 periments and triumphs. 



His recognition has been tardy, but last year 

 more than 6,000 men, embracing among them 

 the very pick and flower of the scientific 

 life of two hemispheres, made the pilgrimage 

 to his Santa Rosa home to study the lines 

 of his Investigations, to see with their owii 

 eyes many things which their scientific minds 

 could not accept as truth, without visual dem- 

 onstration, and to learn some details of the 

 supreme results achieved. During the year. 

 .30,000 letters were received, coming from every 

 quarter of the globe, asking for more light 

 upon his work. The Carnegie Institution has 

 recognized his worth in a substantial manner 

 by granting the sum of $100,000 to be made 

 available in sums of $10,000 each year for ten 

 years. 



This will be a great aid in carrying 

 out the many experiments he now has on 

 hand, and it is to be hoped they will be 

 carried to successful conclusions. 



What apparently at this time will in 

 the future be considered Burbank 's 

 greatest achievement is the development 

 of the thornless cactus, which is botan- 

 ically an opuntia and fommonly called 

 the prickly pear. For a periotl of over 

 ten years he has worked with the utmost 

 persistence and skill until at last he has 



developed a cactus plant that will eon- 

 vert the desert into a garden. ' ' He has 

 not only made it thornless," so says 

 Mr. Harwood, "but he has made it 

 adaptable to any climate. ' ' This we can 

 readily believe, "as it will thrive on the 

 hot desert and it will grow with mar- 

 velous fecundity when irrigated or when 

 planted in rich soil." Its great value 

 as an article of food for cattle will in 

 truth make the desert smile. The te- 

 nacity of this class of plants is well 

 known to all plantsmen. 



And some of the fruit of this prickless pear 

 is possessed of a flavor hitherto unknown, 

 having a combination of the flavors of half 

 a dozen fruits, variously suggesting pineap- 

 ple, melon, peach, apricot, but yet without 

 definition or identification. It is full of nu- 

 trients, too; in fact, it has been found that 

 the natives of some southern climes virtually 

 live upon the fruit of one of the crude par- 

 ents of this wonderful plant. It Is stated 

 that one of the more liighly developed plants 

 grown to almost gigantic stature In three 

 .Ncars has over 600 pounds of nutritious food 

 for man and beast upon it. and as one looks 

 upon this one plant and thinks of the vast 

 multiplication of it now possible, you begin 

 to realize of what Is likely to come to pass in 

 the reclamation of the waste places of the 

 earth. This cactus now becomes a definite 

 practical food. It may be eaten raw or 

 rooked. The leaves may be put up and pre- 

 .serveil as ginger or melon rinds or citrons. 

 They may be eaten in a variety of ways, 

 while the fruit Itself will prove one of the 

 delicacies of the market. 



The new variety preserves its type, 

 never reverting. There is apparently no 

 disposition to go back to the original. 



Mr. Burbank has done much among 

 the poppies. He has succeeded in cross- 

 ing an annual with a perennial, and 

 some of the flowers are said to be ten 

 inches across. The species operated 

 upon were the oriental poppy, Papaver 

 oiicntalis. as pollen parent, and the 

 (ipiiini variety. P. somnifenini. a.s seed 

 parent. 



Another of his achievements was the 

 creation of the fastest growing tree in 

 the temperate zones of the world, a wal- 

 nut which in thirteen years has grown to 

 six times the size that an average wal- 

 nut has grown in twenty-eight years. 

 The Fhells of this walnut were bred so 

 thin that birds could pick holes in them, 

 BO that it became necessary to reverse 

 the process, breeding back until the 

 shells have become of the requisite thick- 

 ness. 



The plum-cot, another achievement, is 

 a combination of the common American 

 plum, a Japanese plum, and the comm6n 

 apricot, producing a fruit unknown to 



