JuLy, 1913.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 207 
is no royal road to Orchid culture other than the long and certain one of 
observation and practical experience, Orchids can be grown, and successfully, 
by the born gardener who is a good cultivator of ordinary greenhouse 
plants, if he takes to them and really studies their wants, and, since so 
many of the most showy and useful kinds are sold so cheaply, a large 
measure of quiet enjoyment can be derived from these interesting plants 
without extravagant expenditure. 
In conclusion I will remark that the one matter which has, more than 
any other, revolutionised Orchid culture is the art of hybridising and 
raising seedling Orchids. The important part of Orchidology has created 
an entirely new interest, and fanciers are no longer dependent on 
importations of the plants from foreign countries. At the present day 
seedling Orchids are raised freely, and these home-raised plants more often 
than not are far more easily cultivated than imported plants, naturally 
so because they are acclimatised from birth. This combination of 
circumstances could scarcely fail to make for advancement, and it is to 
these, together with the reduction in price of Orchids, and last, but not 
least, to the intelligence and sagacity of our practical growers, on whom 
laid, in the past, the responsibility of cultivating rare and costly collections, 
that the wonderful progress is due, and which has exploded for ever the 
idea that England is, as Sir Joseph Hooker once observed, the grave of 
tropical Orchids. 
A very interesting discussion ielicwed: Mr. Challis, gardener to the Earl 
of Pembroke, in the course of his remarks said his experience had been that 
it was better to have the house dry at times. During the last twenty years 
he had been trying to see what dryness Orchids would bear, and as far as 
Cattleyas were concerned he found that unless they were in an extremely 
sunny window the house was better without moisture than in a saturated 
house. Mr. Challis also raised the question of manures, especially pointing 
out that Orchids in their wild state received a certain amount of ammonia 
and carbonic acid from the air. 
Mr. Alexander said he had experimented on Vandas with various 
manures, but he found that those which were without manure did much 
better than those which had been manured. Fresh air and light » was the 
very life of everything on this earth. 
Mr. Tauser regretted, that Bath at the present time had gone down in 
Orchid culture. He thought all employers should keep just a few in order 
that when their younger gardeners left to go elsewhere, where there might 
be a large collection, they would not go without experience. 
Mr. Alexander, who had brought with him a choice collection of blooms, 
then gave an interesting history of their parentage, and one which he 
Showed, a hybrid between Cymbidium Lowiannm and C. insigne, he 
