120 



aENERAL i;eview op thk orchide.i^;. 



the latter })eriod of his life Ji regular contributor to the Cottage \ 

 Gardener (now Journal of RorticuUtnc). From the circumstances 

 under which he was placed while gardener successively to Mr. Gordon 

 at Haffield, Mr. Harris at Kilburn, and Sir William Middleton at ! 

 Shrubland Park, the two last named being- amateurs of orchids, 

 more than perhaps from choice., he paid much attention to these 

 plants, and from his various contributions to the botanical and i 

 horticultural publications of his time it is instructive to trace the 

 changes he successively made in his modes of treatment, changes ' 

 that were impressed upon him by the force of accurate observation 

 and reflection ; how at first he adopted the erroneous practices then | 

 prevalent respecting orchid culture, but which he stigmatised as : 

 ''hideous,'^ ''frightful" when, after a few years' experience, he had J 

 become one of the best cultivators of orchids of his time. \ 



Miltonia Clowesii on a block of wood at Messrs. Loddiges in 1S42. 

 (Copied fron\ Paxtnn's Marjmine nf Botan;i.) 



In 1836, while in the service of Mr. Gordon, he contrihuted some notes j 

 on orchids to Paxton's Magazine of Botany* from wliich we extract the ^ 



Vol. II. p. 263. 



