ORCHID CONFERENCE. 



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Surrey, and these identical plants were interesting as having 

 been grown out of doors in a sheltered nook over a running 

 stream for four months (i.e., June to October) during 1884. 

 The vexed questions with regard to the "pruning" and " manur- 

 ing" of Orchids were not touched upon in a very decided 

 manner, although a good pruned specimen, Dendrobium nobile, 

 was exhibited ; and at a previous meeting, on April 21st, of the 

 Society, Mr. Prinsep showed a splendid example of Dendrobium 

 nobile, which had been primed by him. It had forty-eight 

 growths all more or less leafy, and bore six hundred and thirty 

 expanded flowers. 



As to manures and their application, the consensus of opinion 

 went to show that when used in solution and sprinkled sparingly 

 on the floors and stages, the plants were generally benefited by 

 their application, but that the direct application of solid or liquid 

 manures to the compost in which epiphytal Orchids are grown 

 is a dangerous proceeding, liable to cause serious injury. 



Arrangement. 



The six or seven hundred plants exhibited were arranged on 

 tables down the centre of the great Conservatory, thus giving a 

 vivid mass of colour amid the greenery afforded by the ordinary 

 occupants, such as palms, ferns, dracsenas, &c, of the place. 

 Cut flowers of Orchids were not so abundant as one might have 

 expected, seeing that many amateurs might thus have added to 

 the interest of the exhibition without in any way risking the 

 health of their plants. If another display of the kind is held, it 

 is to be hoped that this point will be brought before growers 

 who may reside at a distance, since the expenses of forwarding 

 cut blooms is a mere trifle as compared with the carriage of 

 the plants themselves. 



As we have said, there were no " specimens" of the 

 " elephantine " or flower - show type present, and this in 

 itself, as we have already observed, was a subject for con- 

 gratulation rather than for regret. It is to be sincerely hoped 

 that the day of " made-up" specimen Orchids is over, and that 

 in future we shall see bond fide single plants as grown only at 

 our exhibitions. The bad habit of taking half-a-dozen small 

 plants (more or less as the case may be) of Cattleya or Dendro- 

 bium, and " bedding them out" in a big tub of moss and then 

 exhibiting what is really a group of plants as a " specimen," is 



