60 PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 
warding the plants. The want of this knowledge often 
results in the trouble the collector has taken being in 
vain, and disappointment to the receiver who gets the 
dead plants and has to tell his correspondent the sad tale 
of failure. 
Orchids should be gathered and forwarded during their 
resting season, and with a sufficient time between their 
being sent off and their natural growing season to allow of 
the period of their transit being made before their resting 
season expires. This rule is often needlessly violated by 
those who are settled in the district from whence they are 
sending the Orchids, and who could easily wait until the 
resting season comes round. For those who are travelling 
and have to take the Orchids when they can and in whatever 
condition they may be, however, there is some excuse, and 
by carefully forwarding the plants, even although at the 
wrong season, many may get them over alive. Residents 
in the tropics often grow a collection of Orchids, bringing 
to the gardens around their residences the plants collected 
in distant parts of their districts. These growers have a 
notion that cultivated plants are the best to send their cor- 
respondents, therefore, although they could collect fresh 
plants, they think it safer to send those in their own gardens. 
These are the very worst plants to travel. They are usually 
collected in high localities, and their sojourn in a garden 
results in lowered vitality, which explains why a large pro- 
portion die during the journey to this country. 
Freshly collected plants, in whatever stage they may be, 
are the best, the ideal conditions being to take the plants at 
mid-resting season, to have the case to receive them beneath 
the trees on which they are growing, to pack them off at 
