23 a The Wild Garden. 



to the garden. Some of our nurserymen supply it, 

 and they get their supplies from the Continent, 

 where it is a widely distributed plant. It should 

 be planted in broken limestone and fibrous loam, 

 on the eastern side of a rockwork. When well 

 grown it is a beautiful plant, quite as much so as 

 some of the Cypripediums grown in the Orchid 

 house, but, being perfectly hardy, is of course far 

 more interesting and suitable for the British garden. 

 The most important thing with regard to the 

 Orchids is the procuring of them in a suitable 

 state for planting. When they are gathered in a 

 wild state, the roots should be taken up as carefully 

 as possible, and transferred to their garden home 

 quickly and safely. They are very often sold 

 cheaply in Covent Garden, but the roots are 

 generally mutilated, not only from careless and 

 shallow taking up, but from being so tightly bound 

 round with moss and matting that any bit of root 

 they had when taken up is bruised to death. I 

 got a capital stock by finding one of the men who 

 collected ferns and wild plants for Covent Garden, 

 showing him the kinds I wanted, and telling him 

 not to bind them up individually, but to lay them 

 in loose layers in moss, having taken them up care- 

 fully, with the roots or tubers entire. Of course, if 



