THE ORCHID REVIEW. 109 
treatises, or commit them to dry earth burial in gardening books. Very 
few outsiders suspect that any amusement could be found therein. Orchids 
are environed by mystery, pierced now and again by a brief announcement 
that something with an incredible name has been sold for a fabulous 
number of guineas; which passing glimpse into an unknown world makes 
it more legendary than before. It is high time such noxious superstitions 
were dispersed.” 
And to disperse them the author proceeds forthwith. ‘It is astonishing 
to me,” he observes, *‘ that so few people grow Orchids. Every modern 
book on gardening tells how five hundred varieties at least, the freest to 
flower, and assuredly as beautiful as any, may be cultivated without heat 
for seven or eight months of the year.” A little later we are told that “ the 
cool house, in general, requires a fire at night until June 1.” Here the 
average outsider will certainly call a halt, while the novice may even call in 
the aid of the local expert with a character to lose. 
We would refrain from looking at a book of this kind too critically, 
though the author’s remark that “hardly a statement needs correction” is, 
to say the least, superfluous. Of Odontoglossum we learn that “no one in 
England has raised a plant from seed—that we may venture to say 
definitely.” And yet the fact has been recorded over and over again that in 
June, 1890, Messrs. Veitch flowered Odontoglossum x excellens raised from 
hybrid seeds obtained in their establishment. And Messrs. Heath have 
since performed the same feat. The legend that the Cattleya labiata sent 
home by Gardner was C. 1. Warneri is equally wide of the mark, and Mr. 
Boyle might easily have satisfied himself that Warneri flowered for the first 
time in England just twenty-two years later. Numerous other cases could 
be pointed out, but we refrain. Mr. Boyle writes as an enthusiast, and is 
sometimes led away. Many Orchids are easily grown if treated aright, but 
attention they must have, or they will not prove more satisfactory than 
other plants. And the novice will soon discover that every “bit of glass” 
is not necessarily an Orchid House. 
The Amateur Orchid Cultivator’s Guide Book. By H. A. BURBERRY, F.R.H.S. 
Blake and McKenzie, Liverpool, 1894. 
This is a most useful little work, which we commend to all who 
contemplate growing Orchids. Its purpose is to give ‘‘in plain words, easily 
understood instructions on important points belonging to every-day work ” 
in the culture of Orchids. It is a book for beginners, though many who are 
more or less experts will find numerous useful facts in its pages. It treats 
of heating, ventilation, shading, watering, potting, diseases and insect 
enemies, treatment of imported Orchids, seedlings—in fact, almost every 
conceivable subject on which the grower requires information, and in very 
