bee ORCHID REVIEX, - 
VoL. XXI.] oa POM ees ks [No. 249. 
OUR NOTE BOOK. 
THE following deserves a more permanent record than the columns of the 
daily press, whence it was culled for our benefit. The occasion was the 
appearance of what is called ‘the new Princess Mary Orchid,” whose 
portrait appears at page 176. We have omitted a few lines at the end 
which did not relate to Orchids :— 
THE ORCHID BUILDERS. 
THE BREATHLESS ROMANCE OF THE NURSES OF NEW FLowERs. 
NaTuRE is not, on the whole, a gardener. She does splendidly with blue- 
bells in the spring, with wild roses in the summer, and berries in the 
autumn; but, on the whole, she is too slapdash and fluky and parochial for 
the average gardener’s tastes. Her methods are not ambitious enough, 
Human gardeners have been trying for untold generations to show her how 
to make the most of her astonishing material. 
This is especially so to-day with Orchids. Nature does not grow 
Orchids as men do. When she produced an Orchid, say, in South. 
America, she probably thought she had done very well; but men were not 
Satisfied with that. They got another Orchid from Brazil, put the two 
together, and produced a third—more beautiful than either of the original 
Ones. Nature remains content with bees or other insects for reproduction, 
and they, unfortunately, do not care to travel thousands of miles in the 
interests of horticulture. 
But professional Orchid growers think nothing of travelling over a 
whole continent to look for Orchids, and one result is that two plants which 
grow in a wild state 4,000 miles apart may find themselves neighbours in a 
Chelsea glasshouse—and not only neighbours, but in the surprising position 
of being parents of a third Orchid, an entirely new plant, of amazing form 
and colour, which unaided Nature could never have produced. 
This making of Orchids is one of the few romantic trades_left. In 
distant countries collectors wander about for months, climbing mountains, 
exploring the banks of rivers, and going into wild places where men have 
hardly ever been before. When they find a new Orchid they carefully dig it 
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