184 
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
think a skeleton frame, like a propagating case, is best, in which 
the covering is supplied by narrow sheets of glass resting on the 
front of the frame and on the central bar of the ridge (or back 
portion if not a span), as the ventilation of such a contrivance 
is much better than where a sashed frame is used, and in such 
a one it is possible to secure a healthy atmosphere without 
drips even when closed. The risk of using a frame is that, 
although advantage may be secured at the commencement, if 
the young plants are left in too long, or kept too close, the 
whole of them may perish in a very short time; and this fact 
seems to bear out Mr. Seden’s experience, that the old plan 
of sowing the seeds on already existing plants is the safest in 
the end. 
But with the germinating seeds, or with the first budding 
young plant secured, the hybridist’s troubles are not over, for 
if left too long in the position they were sown in, they drop 
off one after another. Hence, as soon as they can be pricked 
off into pans or shallow suspending Orchid pots filled with 
sterilised material the better, and as soon after the next trouble 
of making the first root has been passed, each should occupy 
its own tiny pot, which should be fixed or plunged, several 
together, into suspending pans, or placed on the staging in a 
suitable house, each at all stages bearing its record ticket of 
celluloid. 
When once well-rooted single plants are obtained, it is only 
a question of time, care and convenience until the plants 
gladden the eyes of their originator with their flowers, but 
during all this time they have to run the same risks as the 
established Orchids do, and consequently it is no wonder that 
some of them, like some of the imported species, fail. 
One fruitful cause of loss among hybrid Orchids (or indeed 
among Orchids generally) is the too free use of the ventilators 
in spring and early summer, and especially the top ventilators, 
to nail down which I am sure in some collections would work 
an amazing improvement in the plants contained in the houses. 
I commonly see when visiting Orchid collections in spring, 
and often during the prevalence of cutting east wands, the top 
ventilators thrown open in the most unreasonable manner, and 
at the same time the boilers are being driven to keep up the 
heat. If the artificial heat is kept down and the top venti- 
