130 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [May, 1906. 
CONSTRUCTION, ARRANGEMENT, &c.—Size must of course be largely a 
consideration for the builder and his ambitions, but a very small house has 
some drawbacks. ‘a none of small cubic measurement fluctuates readily 
—it is too i and P to all changes of the outside 
P 
conditions, and when air is given in quantity the atmospheric moisture 
leaves it quickly. Shading must be lowered sooner in the day ona small 
house than on a large one, and kept on longer into the afternoon. So far 
everything seems in favour of the large house, but the large house has 
some minor drawbacks as well. Once the temperatures get low in large 
houses a good long time must pass before they can be got up again, and 
for careful work, such as raising sced, the small house (not too small) is 
preferable, as—although it may mean a lot more attention—it can be 
regulated. For growing a large quantity of stuff, one large house is better 
than several small ones—if only for the reason that it will mean much less 
work, 
At this point we might strike out and say that there could be two ideal 
Odontoglossum houses—the small one without centre staging, and the 
large one with centre staging. A rational and economical width for a house 
without centre staging is twelve feet outside measurement, which, after 
deducting the eighteen inches taken up by the nine-inch brick sides, will 
give us an interior width of ten feet six inches. Allowing a three feet wide 
pathway—which is quite narrow enough—there is left a staging space of 
seven feet six inches, or three feet nine inches on each side of the pathway. 
The sides should be four feet high, and of brickwork to the eaves, and the 
height of the house from apex to floor level eight feet. A proportionate 
length for a house of this width might be 40—6o feet, but that must be 
regulated by the number of plants it is intended to cultivate. A sufficient 
quantity of piping for this house would be two rows on one side and three 
on the other. 
It is usual in Orchid houses to have a second stage underneath the one 
on which the plants are standing. This serves the double purpose of 
keeping the heat from the pipes from going direct up through the plants, and 
holding material which will give off moisture. In all houses it is desirable 
that the two stagings should be well apart, so that a free circulation of ait 
may pass between the two, and I would now like to ask if some modification 
of this middle staging could not take place in the case of Odontoglossums- 
When it is remembered that no heat is required in the Odontoglossum 
house for probably six months out of the year, and that buoyancy is evel 
essential, the necessity of retaining the orthodox middle staging does 
seem so absolute. I know two places where this staging has been done 
away with altogether, and the plants are doing much better, they says for 
it. It would probably be unwise to go as far as this, but this, I think, 16 
