60 
The handy little volume, extending over two hundred 
and thirty pages, has three excellent coloured plates and | 
fifty illustrations of single flowers of cool-house orchids, 
rr =e mis — : oe 
Fic. 1.—Odontoglossum Crispum Pittianum, showing the widest departure 
from the normal white form. The sum of 750/. was offered for this plant. 
reproduced from photographs by Colonel F. C. Taylor. 
The book, though useful as a work of reference, will be 
found to give the best results to the amateur 
just beginning orchid culture, or who has been 
pursuing it with indifferent results, if he re- 
peatedly peruse it from beginning toend. Thus 
he will have a sound basis on which to continue 
his work, freed from the struggles and failures 
which the unaided amateur must expect, and 
the sorrows the past experience of which Mr. 
Boyle justly advances as a reason why he 
should be able to write a book which would be 
useful to those who contemplate following him 
as amateur orchid cultivators—a pastime of 
the greatest interest and pleasure if reasonably 
followed. 
The work opens with six lengthy and in- 
structively written articles, setting forth the 
general principles of orchid culture and matters 
relating to it, after which throughout the re- 
mainder of the work follow the enumeration of 
the genera and species suitable for culture in 
the greenhouse, together with cultural remarks 
and much information relating to each, all of 
which, having passed the scrutiny of that well- 
known and clever expert, Mr. Joseph Godseff, 
have a sufficient guarantee of excellence. 
On testing the question ample proof is ob- 
tained. If but for the articles on Coelogyne 
cristata and on Oncidiums for the cool-house, 
the perusal of the work might well be recom- 
mended. In the case of Coelogyne cristata, 
one of the most beautiful and easily grown 
orchids when treated as Mr. Boyle advises, 
there are few species which give more un- 
satisfactory results to the budding amateur grow- | 
ing it by his own judgment. Even experienced | 
growers in large establishments often have. their 
NO. 1698, VOL. 66] 
NAT ORE 
[May 15, 1902 
plants with the shrivelled bulbs which are cited as to 
be avoided by the method prescribed. . In the matter 
of the Oncidiums enumerated, the mere direction that 
they are to be grown in a cool-house is almost sufficient 
to ensure success, for they are more often than not grown 
in too high a temperature and killed in consequence. 
And so on throughout the book; even the enumeration 
together of the species which can be successfully grown 
in a greenhouse, to say nothing of the excellent cultural 
details, makes it of great value, for it saves the 
amateur from attempting things which require more heat 
than he can give—a mistake which causes many small 
amateur collections to look shabby and annoy and 
disgust the owner, who has probably taken more pains 
to bring about that undesirable state of things by work- 
ing on unsuitable subjects than he need take to ensure a 
delightful success on the lines set forth in Mr. Boyle’s 
book. 
But from the critic the book calls for some remarks on 
points which luckily do not much interfere with its general 
usefulness. In the preface and following articles, Mr. 
Boyle makes much of his desire to advance the new 
Belgian culture of orchids in oak-leaf mould, or terre de 
bruyére, but in the progress of the work he only places 
it as an alternative method, wisely placing the well-tried 
British method of potting in peat fibre and sphagnum 
moss in the first place. It should be remembered that 
there is a vast difference between the Belgian collections, 
with large numbers of a few species only, and many of 
the British collections, which include a few of each of a 
large number of species. Then there are climatic and 
other differences ; and above all it should be said that 
one of the largest and oldest and some of the smaller 
Belgian orchid growers, after experiment, will have 
nothing to do with it. In Great Britain the question is 
on trial, and while in some places there are excellent 
specimens grown in leaf-soil, in others it has been tried 
and abandoned. 
ee Se SE La SS eee 
Fic. 2.—Odontoglossum Cervantesii Decorum. 
Again, when touching on the use of manures something 
more definite than general remarks might have been used 
—the “yea or nay” promised in the preamble—or the 
a a il eee al 
Sey ae NLINNE m m it— e e 
ane 
