A EETKOSPECT OF OKCHIL) CULTURE. 



113 



moisture." " This was the first rude forerunner of our modern 

 orchid basket and the first instance we find recorded of moss being 

 used for surfacing. About this time w^e find Dean Herbert experimenting 

 in orchid culture. In a letter to the secretary of the Horticultural 

 Society of London, and published in the Transactions of the Society 

 for the year 1820, he writes: — "I found no difficulty in estabhshing 

 Epidendra on the stems of a tree by cutting a notch in the bark 

 and inserting the plant like a graft and tying moss about it to 

 support it till the young roots had attached 

 themselves to the bark, but for want of sufficient 

 moisture they did not make much progress. 1 

 have since adopted the following method of 

 irrigating them — by placing above them a pot 

 of water with a hole at the bottom through 

 which a string passes nearly as large as the 

 aperture, by means of which the water is 

 gradually and continually conducted to the 

 upper part of the parasitical plant." From the 

 context it appears, however, that the idea of 

 supplying water to orchids in this manner had 

 been communicated to him by Dr. Wallich, 

 Director of the Botanic Garden at Calcutta, 

 and who had used a similar contrivance there. 

 Loddiges at this time made their compost 

 of rotten wood and moss with a small quantity 

 of sand. Their orchid stove was heated by 

 brick flues to as high a temperature as could 

 be obtained by that means, and by a tan bed in orchid basket uselb^ sir Jusepu 



,1 -T-ii 1 i. i. i.T -J. 1, i. • Banks iu 1817. The plant is Sac- 



the middle kept constantly moist by watering mntnus panicuiauis. 



. . . (Copied from the Bokmical 



and from which a steamy evaporation was rising Register.) 



at all times without any ventilation from without. In 1825, they had 

 in their stoves eighty-four species included in about thirty genera. 

 Their method was imitated by probably all cultivators of orchids at 

 that epoch, and into such liot steamy places orchids were consigned 

 as soon as received, and into which, it was occasionally remarked, 

 it was as dangerous to health and comfort to enter as it was into 



Bot. Keg. 111. ml), t. 220. 



