2 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
A CENTURY OF ORCHID GROWING. 
On the threshold of a new century we are tempted to glance back at the 
achievements of the past one. To write its history would be almost to 
write the history of Orchid cultivation, so few were the species to be found 
in gardens a hundred years ago. A number of beautiful kinds had been 
introduced, though the majority barely managed to produce flowers before 
making their exit. At the commencement of the nineteenth century, Orchid 
culture, as we now know it, was practically non-existent — no peat, no 
sphagnum moss, no basket culture, no heating by means of hot water. One 
can scarcely speak of it as in its infancy, though the germ had been laid. 
Orchid-growing in the eighteenth century forms an interesting chapter—it 
may be found at pages 44-48 of our second volume—and it is the culture 
with which our era commences, but it is not the culture of to-day. 
Incredible as it may seem, the year 1800 seems to have witnessed the 
advent of the first East Indian Orchids, when, thanks to the exertions of 
Sir Joseph Banks, three species of Geodorum and Acampe multiflora were 
introduced, together with Aérides odoratum from Cochin China. For 
several years afterwards the annual additions to the list were very moderate. 
The early years of the century witnessed a most praiseworthy attempt to 
overcome difficulties in Orchid culture, which seemed well-nigh insuperable, 
owing to a very imperfect conception of their requirements, for we find them 
grown in tanner’s bark, decayed wood, hazel loam, sawdust, and what-not, 
in the hottest of stoves, and when they failed—as was not unnatural—the 
cause was often attributed to their supposed parasitic nature, and their 
culture was considered hopeless, for it appeared “a vain attempt to find 
substitutes for the various trees each species might affect within the limits 
of a hothouse.” It was only by degrees that these pernicious doctrines were 
dispelled and the foundations of a rational system of treatment were laid. 
In 1817 we find the basket system of treatment first adopted by Sir 
Joseph Banks, though the light wicker-work then used has been discarded 
for something more substantial. Cattleya labiata first appeared in 1818, 
and Cypripedium insigne at about the same period. Disa grandiflora and 
Oncidium Papilio also put in an appearance in 1825. At this time we find 
that the Horticultural Society had by singular exertion succeeded “ in 
forming such a collection of this tribe of curious plants as was never seen in 
Europe before,” consisting of about 180 tropical kinds. Messrs. Loddiges 
had also in their stoves at Hackney about eighty-four kinds, belonging to 
some thirty genera. 
The second quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed an enormous 
development of Orchid culture, and it was not until this period that the 
foundation of our present system ‘of treatment was laid. The Horticultural 
