A KETEOSPECT OP ORCHID CULTDBE. 125 



Orchids must have a period of rest in a dry and comparatively cool 

 atmosphere, and during growth a high temperature and moist atmosphere 

 should be maintained. 



A moist atmosphere may be maintained by " damping down," that is 

 to say, by sprinkling water over the stages, walls, and paths of the 

 houses. 



Water should be ap})lied according to the season of the year, with- 

 held in winter, given copiously during active growth, a gradual increase 

 in quantity after growth connnences and a gradual decrease when the 

 season's growth approaches completion. 



Pots according to the size of the plants shoulil be used with an 

 ample drainage of broken crocks and charcoal. The compost should 

 consist of fibrous peat and sphagnum moss. 



For Aerides, Vandas, Phalasnopsis, Saccolabiums and otliei' Indian 

 orcliids, and also Angrsecums, blocks of the wood of the apple, pear, 

 plum or even of cork if obtainable are best ; or baskets made of hazel 

 or maple wood. 



Hot-water pipes should be used for heating the houses. Fresh air 

 should be admitted by ventilators near the ground close to the hot- 

 water pipes, and egress allowed by ventilators at the top. 



The plants should have as much light as possible. Shading should 

 be used on hot bright days and at such times as when there is risk 

 of injury to the foliage. 

 And yet so deeply rooted was the notion that all orchids must 

 be cultivated in a hot and damp atmosphere that the admonitions 

 and teachings of the orchid m-owers we have named seem to 

 have had but little effect generally. Cattleyas, Odontoglots and 

 other orchids from the temperate region of the Centi-al and 

 South American Cordilleras were in most collections placed in 

 the East Indian house, to the heat and close atmosphere of which 

 they soon succumbed. To such an extent were the losses felt 

 that Liudley in a remarkable article published in the Gardeners' 

 GhronicU towards the end of 1859 pronounced their treatment '^ a 

 deplorable failure,'^ and wliich Mr. 13ateman a few years later 

 characterised as " incredible folly." * But the spell which had held 

 orchid culture in thraldom for more than thirty years was at length 

 broken ; the wisdom of the advice vainly tendered so long ago by 

 Paxton, Beaton and others began to be recognised and put into 

 practice. Separate houses or compartments of houses better con- 

 structed and better ventilated, in which warm, intermediate, and 



* Monograph of Odontoglossuni, Intr. p. 1. 



