246 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
CALENDAR OF OPERATIONS FOR AUGUST. 
By H. A. BURBERRY, Highbury, Moor Green, Birmingham. 
In no department here is any perceptible change discernible at present, 
either as regards the temperatures or general management. To carry out 
the treatment recommended in the few preceding Calendars is the very best 
advice I can tender in the present one. 
Often have I spoken of tree leaves (English oak preferable), half decayed, 
as a valuable agent for the cultivation of Orchids, firstly because a medium 
is afforded from which moisture evaporates regularly, and secondly because 
that moisture is impregnated with a natural manurial stimulant which 
cannot fail to be most invigorating to plant life. I like to put the leaves 
about in moderately thin layers (say two or three inches deep), in places 
which dry up very quickly owing to some cause, such as an underground 
passage of hot-water pipes, &c., and by placing them above the pipes as 
described more fully in the Calendar for January last. 
My object in bringing this matter forward again is to caution readers 
who may have been induced to try leaves against an error which used to be 
very common, namely, that of using them in huge, wet, cold and decom- 
posing masses. Decomposition is, of course, always in progress, hence the 
manurial stimulant, but unless it proceeds in a natural and gentle way 
fungoid growths appear upon the scene, the spores of which soon fill the air 
and are not slow to attack such plants as afford suitable ground for their 
germination and rapid growth, the development of which produces what is 
known as the Cattleya disease, &c. 
Well do I remember an instance in point, some eight years ago (that 
being about the date when the employment of leaves was strongly urged by 
several prominent growers), when I hastened to empty the large centre tanks 
of several Orchid houses of their huge cargo of putrid leaves and water. 
At this place several of the houses had fine large centre tanks throughout 
their entire length about four feet deep and built up with bricks and cement. 
These had been from time to time filled up with leaves, and when I took 
charge of the collection there was between two and three feet of rotten 
materials, which, as the tanks were quite water-tight, were very wet and 
cold, in fact almost swimming in the discoloured stagnant water. It was 
soon quite evident that this state of affairs was not correct, but was bringing 
about ruination to the Orchids, particularly the Cattleyas and Leelias. 
Disease was rapidly taking off the plants, and did not desist until the putrid 
materials were removed. Care must be taken to avoid this state of things. 
Some of the earliest of the Dendrobiums will now be finishing their 
growth, such as D. crassinode and D. Wardianum, and as soon a 
this is completed each plant should be gradually removed to a drier atmos 
phere, such as that of a Peach house or Vinery which is resting. We have 
yet a good deal to learn about Dendrobium Wardianum, in fact the field for 
