112 
THE ORCHID WORLD. 
SOME IDEAS ON ORCHID HYBRIDISATION. 
By J. M. BLACK. 
( Continued from pngc Sy. ) 
THE considerations which influenced us 
in selecting- an open site, namely, to 
have at command during- the four 
seasons all the light available, must still con- 
tinue to be our guidance in the design and 
aspect of our house, or houses. Orchids a.'e 
at present grown m all kinds of buildings : in 
the lean-to, which is only half a house, and 
suffers the drawback of having light from one 
side only ; in the quarter, half and three- 
quarter span houses, which suffer in their 
relative degrees from the same defect. 
Orchids are also sometimes g/own — ^or alleged 
to be grown — in lofty conservatories, which 
arc frequently gabled, turreted structures, and 
ma}' have one or more fa(^ades emblazoned 
v.-ith multi-coloured glass. The conservatory 
in larger establishments is decked out periodi- 
cally from plant-houses built fo.- growing pur- 
poses, and when it is of presumptive dimen- 
sions takes to itself the more imposing name 
cf winter garden ; a name, I believe, bor/owed 
from the German \V inter Garten. There can 
be no objections to orchids bemg brought into 
this house for the time they are in flower — 
indeed, it is their function to decorate — and 
there will be no temptation or need in places 
with other houses to g/ow them in the con- 
servatory ; but in the more modest suburban 
residences the conservatory may be the onl\- 
plant-house, and will perforce have to perform 
all the work of the culture-houses and the 
conservatory of the larger place. In this 
house will be found a miscellaneous and prob- 
ably ill-assorted conglomeration of foliage and 
flowering plants. These conservatories are 
usually built on to a side of the dwelling- 
house, and may have any aspect that chance 
and the house frontage have given them ; and 
into these places orchids are sometimes put, 
with the assurance that they are as easily 
grown as geraniums. To recommend a man 
to buy orchids to place in these conservatories 
is not popularising the cultivation of orchids, 
but the reverse. He is disgusted at the very 
beginning, and drops any effort at their 
serious culture even before he has really 
begun. All collections must make a begin- 
ning, and orchid history teaches us that the 
more modest and gradual the beginning the 
more expansive and long-lived they are likely 
to become. Secure in the knowledge that the 
plants can be grown and gixe a generous 
return for the care bestowed on them, there 
will follow a gradual addition and an almost 
unconscious transition from the cheaper 
\arieties to the choicer and more exclusive 
kinds affected by the connoisseur. 
To grow orchids in a .semi-detached, lofty 
conservatory is analogous to growing a Dutch 
bulb in the neck of a bottle of water ; it will 
yield up what was imported in it, but lay uj) 
little store for a future effort. I am prepared 
to be told that i ypriped iiini iiisigne, some 
insigne hybrids, Civlogyne eristata, and a few 
other orchids will grow on indefinitely — if 
flowering indifferently — in a moist corner of 
a conservatory ; but one becomes an orchid 
grower in only a very limited sense if confined 
to these, admirable though they are. 
1 am endeavouring to be perfectly candid 
with the readers of THE ORCHID WORLD. 
1 hope its influence may be directly respon- 
sible for many new and successful recruits to 
practical orchidology, and that these notes, 
while assisting many to make up their mind=; 
to become serious orchid growers, may dissi- 
])ate some assiduously propagated illusions 
about the accommodating nature of the plants 
with regard to their housing. I am constantly 
dropping across writers who, either through 
ignorance or want of candour, say that orchids 
may be successfully grown with other plants 
and in almost any structure ; but in all ni}- 
experience T have never seen anything 
approaching satisfaction in this arrangement. 
T have seen plants of Perisicrin elnta doing 
excellently in a house of stove plants, and I 
have seen Yanilln planifolia growing in wild 
luxuriance, and flowering and fruiting along 
