A KETROSPECT OF ORCHID CULTURE, 111 



tlie Botanical Magazine, which had been founded by William Curtis 

 in 1787^ and from the earlier volumes of the Botanical Register, 

 founded by Sydenham Edwards in 1815. From the foregoing 

 extracts and from others of a like kind we gather that the first 

 introduced epiphytal orchids were generally potted in mould formed 

 of decayed wood and leaves^ but sometimes in a mixture of loam 

 and peat^ and that the pots were kept constantly plunged in the tan 

 bed of the stove. That they should soon succumb to such treatment 

 seems to orchid growers of the present day a very natural 

 consequence ; nevertheless it was persisted in for many years. 



The first fifteen years of the present century were overshadowed 

 by the Napoleonic wars which retarded every art that can only 

 fiourish in times of peace. But yet, in the very throes of that 

 tremendous struggle, the Horticultural Society of London was founded 

 and obtained its charter of incorporation in 1809. From that epoch 

 horticulture may be said to have entered into public life and to 

 have received an impetus it never could have had from the 

 isolated efforts of private individuals. Orchids, till then regarded 

 more as curiosities than as subjects to be seriously taken in hand 

 culturally, began to attract more notice ; Messrs. Loddigcs began 

 to cultivate them for sale in their Hackney nursery about the year 

 1812, and they continued to be the principal commercial cultivators 

 of them in Europe till the breaking up of their establishment in 

 1852, During this long period, the number of orchids introduced 

 for the first time into cultivation by Messrs, Loddiges was very 

 considerable and the influence obtained by the firm as authorities 

 on orchid culture proportionately great, of which the contemporary 

 botanical and horticultural literature affords ample evidence. About 

 the year 1812 or a little later Dr. Roxburgh sent from India 

 the first Yanda, the first Aerides, and the first Dendrobium that 

 were seen alive in England, In that year too Messrs. Loddiges 

 received a plant of Oncidiwn hifolium from a gentleman who brought 

 it from Monte Video, and who informed them that it was hung 

 up in the cabin without earth and continued to flower during a great 

 part of the voyage home ; * a statement that was then regarded 

 as a traveller's tale and beyond the limits of credulity. 



* Bot. Mag. sub, t. 1491. 



