JUNE. 



79 



pensing with tlie one-inch iron pipe, and having troughs cast with what might 

 be called two bottoms thus, with flanges and screw-holes at every 

 6 or 9 feet. A would be the water circulating from the boiler, 

 B the water for producing vapour ; they are easily attached to 

 the flow and return pipe by one-inch wrought-iron pipe at both 

 ends, and lead pipe in the middle, which can be bent in any direction. 



Ashton Court Gardens, near Bristol. W. Dodds. 



PREJUDICE. 



Under the heading of " Prejudice," in your last impression, are remarks 

 made by a gentleman well known in the floral world touching chiefly upon 

 fruits grown under glass, and the causes why these crops are so often failures. 

 I, as* a subscriber to your valuable publication and a horticulturist, cannot 

 agree with your correspondent in some of his remarks. Doubtless the rev. 

 gentleman is an ardent admirer and supporter of horticulture. This, I thint. 

 no one connected with gardening will deny ; but when he attributes the causes 

 of the failings of in-door crops always to the cultivator, I think he is going 

 rather too far. Doubtless there are instances of thic kind to be met with ; 

 but I trust the cases are rare. In bringing a case under your notice in support 

 of my cause, I will refer no farther back than to the present spring. I know 

 a glazed Peach- wall on which there are several fine healthy trees, all of which 

 bloomed well, and each received the same attention as regards their supply of 

 air and water; but, after all possible care and attention had been bestowed 

 upon them, only one tree set its blossom properly. Now, I think no reasonable 

 person will blame the man in charge of these trees for the non-setting of the 

 blossom, for 1 am sure in every respect duty was done to them, and the result 

 is what I have said. This is only one out of the many instances I could 

 adduce to prove that the statement referred to is incorrect. 



Mv object in making these remai'ks is that gentlemen who are in the habit 

 of perusing the pages of the Florist and Pomoxogist must not be too 

 hasty in condemning their gardeners for the mismanagement of that over 

 which they, to a certain degree, have no control. 



Methley Park, Leeds. 4 W. T. 



CULTURE OF TROPICAL ORCHIDS IN THE OPEN AIR. 



We have always said that tropical Orchids are too much coddled. They 

 have generally been subjected in this country to far too close a temperature ; 

 and we believe some of our leading cultivators, such as Mr. Veitch, of Chelsea, 

 have for some time past discovered that such treatment has not been the 

 correct one. As a further proof of this, we read in La Belgique Horticole that 

 M. Bouche has made, in the Botanic Garden at Berlin for many years, a great 

 number of experiments on different species of tropical Orchids, with the view 

 of making them stand out in the open air. For this purpose he made, in a 

 shady place protected from the wind, a bark bed about 2 feet deep. On this 

 bed he placed these tropical Orchids and left them there, without any other 

 protection and without any other artificial heat, from the month of J une till 

 September. The intense green colour which the leaves assumed in this 

 situation, the vigour with which they formed their pseudo-bulbs, have shown 

 to every one the advantages of this form of treatment. Thus placed in the 

 open air Epidendrum tovarense and Acropera Loddigesii have flow ere d. 





B 







A. 





