58 THE FLORIST AND 
all the old culture of hot-houses. Meanwhile, the Orchids presented to all 
a host of problems without solution ; it was only doubts and mysteries and 
piquant researches which agitated the choicer amateurs; not that infantile 
and vulgar curiosity which stops at the surface of things, but a noble desire 
to know, to increase intelligence, and to penetrate further into the knowledge 
of the works of God. 
Under this pregnant impulse, the fortune of the Orchids, for awhile 
doubtful, soon made a rapid advance, which has not since diminished, and 
a judicious imitation of the processes of nature has served as a base for a 
rational culture, which experience progressively tends to make perfect. 
Living Orchids were still very rare in Europe, their multiplication very slow, 
and their price, generally, very high ; it was therefore necessary, to satisfy 
the impatience of amateurs, to procure them from their native country. 
Numerous collectors devoted themselves to these rough and perilous re- 
searches. It was no longer learned persons devoted to classifications and 
systems, neither was it men without instruction, obscure workers of progress, 
for it was not- only necessary to introduce plants, but the art of making 
them live in our green-houses, and all the physical conditions of the natural 
existence must be taught. At once, learned and practical, naturalists and 
cultivators, physicians, geologists, the new collectors should study in every 
aspect tropical nature, note with care the station of plants, their mode of 
existence, the medium in which they were placed, the altitude of localities, 
the state of the atmosphere, the climate and its extreme and mean tempera- 
ture, &c., &c. Let us be grateful for so many journeys courageously 
undertaken, laboriously and energetically pursued in the midst of sufferings, 
privations and dangers without number, and let us not forget the names of 
Linden, Galeotti, Van Houtte, Ghiesbrecht, Funck, Libon, and of so many 
others whose works have done honor to Belgium. 
Much is still wanting before everything can be said concerning the far off 
and little accessible regions where the Epiphytal Orchids grow. If exact 
and concientious observers have described them to us more or less completely, 
others have contributed, by a culpable carelessness, to give credit to. errors 
and to make that considered a rule which is but the exception. In fact, 
and especially in England, where powerful interests and the custom of 
voyages beyond the sea put these ideas at the disposal of whoever will, we 
must admit, that the majority of cultivators of tropical plants do not know 
how to separate the true from the false in that which is written and said 
about the places whence they come, and scarcely give themselves the trouble 
to do so. Meanwhile, to understand Orchids well, and to appreciate pro- 
