January 15, 1385. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
47 
Painting .— Ornamental cresting, finials, guttering, stack pipes, and 
wirework should have three coats of best oil colour, the ventila;ing 
machinery and tie-beams a light blue, and the hot-water pipes above the 
floor-line with lamp black. The woodwork throughout must have one 
coat of best red lead priming colour, and three coats afterwards, 
each coat of paint to be dry before another is laid on. If effect, 
combined with good lasting colour and substance of material applied 
to the wood, be cared for in the painting of forcing houses, and I see 
no reason why it should not be so, the finishing coat might be :—The 
sashes, sashbars, and inner side of frames and mouldings of door 
panels and rafters white, and the other parts of rafters, mullions, 
ridge-beam, door jamb, doors, &c., oil colour ; but should only one 
colour be preferred I would recommend that it be a good dark stone. 
Width , Bottoming , Drainage , and Ventilation of Border .— 
27 feet from the back wall of the vinery will be sufficient width for 
the border. This, 17 feet inside and 12 feet outside, should have a 
9-inch retaining wall 3 feet high from the base of the border, and be 
21 inches deep from the floor-line at the back wall, whence a fall of 
16 inches in the 27 feet should be given. Unless the subsoil of the 
border consists of stone or chalk it will be necessary to place 6 inches 
thick of concrete, composed of five parts of gravel to one of stone 
lime well incorporated on the bottom, and in which a series of deep 
gutter bricks set in cement should be placed at the base of the front re¬ 
taining wall with sufficient fall to carry superfluous water into the waste 
water drain in connection with the galvanised water cisterns, which 
must be fixed in vineries and water tanks underneath plant houses, &c. 
Then lay on the conctete floor rows of horseshoe drain pipes 8 feet 
apart from the back wall of the vinery into openings specially made 
in the retaining front wall outside, and in which cast iron “ hit-and- 
miss’’ventilating bricks communicating with the air-pipes should be 
fixed in the outside and second course above the ground line. Connect, 
as the work proceeds, the several rows of transverse pipes by placing 
a row longitudinally in the centre in both inside and outside borders, 
and take a 4Uinch drain pipe up from each row of cross pipes to 
within a couple of inches immediately under the centre of the hot- 
water pipes and up to the back wall, and ends (against section walls) 
of longitudinally arranged pipes a couple of inches above the surface 
of the Vine border when made, and over each of these pipes place 
finely perforated zinc lids, so that the air thus admitted to the house 
may be diffused instead of coming into it with a rush. The advantage 
of Vine borders, and Peach borders too, being provided with these 
air-pipes, in addition to keeping the soil sweeter by allowing any 
noxious gases that might otherwise be generated at the base of the 
border through the repeated applications of liquid manure and other 
fertilising agents to the roots during the growing season escaping 
therefrom, is that fresh air can be admitted to the house irrespective 
of the weather being wet and windy without the admission of either 
damp or draughts. Six inches thick of brickbats broken somewhat 
fine on the top should be laid on between the air pipes f< r drainage, 
afterwards covering the same with turves from 1 to 2 inches thick, 
grass side down, thus completing a sharp and perfect drainage. 
Vines. —Concurrently with the building of the vineries the process 
of striking young Vines to be planted next April or May should be 
proceeded with, 'these may be raised from eyes taken from well- 
ripened wood, of which half an inch may be left on each side of the 
eye, having the bark and a little of the wood on the opposite side 
removed with a sharp knife. Insert them either singly in 3-inch pots 
or several eyes together in shallow pans, properly crocked, filled to 
within one inch of the rim with a mixture of loam and leaf mould 
(about one part of the latter to three of the former) pressed firmly 
together and a surfacing of sand, on which place the baiked side of 
the eyes flatwise, cover with half an inch depth of soil ; then, where 
no better accommodation exists on the place for raising young Vines 
in, place a box sufficiently deep to admit of the young plants making 
a couple of inches of growth without coming in contact with the 
squares of glass, which should be placed over the box after the pots 
or pans had been {dunged therein to the rim in sawdust. 'J hese, how¬ 
ever, should be removed when the young plants have attained the size 
indicated, and in the case of those in pans the young plants should be 
placed into 3-inch pots at once, and then be plunged in deeper boxes 
and treated as before for a few days until the roots have taken to the 
soil. Those rooted singly in 3-inch po s will only require the glass 
being removed for the present. But as soon as the plants have 
pushed their roots fairly through the soil, they should, like those 
struck in pans and subsequently placed singly into 3-inch pots, be 
shifted into 7-inch pots, substituting sifted lime rubble for leaf mould 
in this potting, and they must afterwards be grown on near the glass and 
carefully tended until the time of planting them arrives. I have yet 
a few remarks to make on the formation of borders, the planting 
therein of the Vines and their after treatment; but they will “ keep ” 
for another paper, which will be written in due time. But before 
concluding this 1 may say in reference to varieties that Black Ham¬ 
burgh, Foster’s Seedling, and Buckland Sweetwater are the be:-t for 
early forcing, as they are also, together with Madresfield Court, 
Alnwick Seedling, and Gros Maroc, excellent mid-season varieties. 
Muscat of Alexandria, Gros Colman, Black Alicante, Mrs. Pince's 
Black Muscat, Gros Guillaume, and Lady Downe’s Seedling are the 
best late-keeping varieties in the order in which their names appear.— 
H. W. Ward, Longford Castle , Wilts. 
ORCHIDS. 
[A paper read by Mr. D. Birt before the Caterbam Hoiticultural Society, 
December 12th.] 
( Continued from page 34.) 
In the woodcut (fig. 7) which is reproduced by Mr. Murray’* 
permission from Darwin’s work on the “ Fertilisation of Orchids,” 
is shown several parts of. the column of a Cattleya flower. It 
represents a longitudinal section down the centre of the column. 
The pistils of the Cattleya are three in number, but as they are 
confluent we may, for practical purposes, speak of them as one, 
and call them “ the pistil.” At the bottom of the pistil is an 
enlargement. This is called the ovarium or egg-bag, and contains 
the seed. The top of the pistil bends over and ends like the 
pistil of the Wallflower in a stigma, but the stigma of the 
Cattleya and many other Orchids is remarkable in having a 
quantity of glutinous matter. This is not to be confounded with 
the nectar which the insects come to eat. The nectar is secreted 
Fig .7. 
B.—Section and literal view of Cattleya flower, wiih all the sepals and petals removed 
except the bisected labeUum shown only in outline, a, anther; 6, sp ing at the top 
of the column ; p, pollen-misses ; r, rostellu-n; s, stigma ; col, column ; l, labcllum ; 
n, nectary ; <j, ovarium, or germen. 
lower down, at the base of the lip, and the place is called the 
nectary. This stigma is obviously well calculated to hold any 
pollen which may be brought in contact with it. 
Here we must note an organ which is not found in common 
flowers. In the drawing is seen a small disc-like mass opposite 
the stigma. This is called the rostellum ; it also has a quantity 
of glutinous matter underneath it, and is, in fact, a kind of 
modified stigma. Jts use, however, is not to receive pollen like 
the stigma proper, but it assists in a most remarkable way, which 
I will explain presently, in bringing about a distribution of tie 
pollen. 
I will lastly call attention to the anther, which is situated 
above the stigma at the top of the column. The Orchid pollen 
i3 in almost all cases not like that of common flowers in the 
form of dust, but consists of wax-like grains, which in most 
Orchids cohere in two masses. Each of these pollen masses has 
a little tail attached to it, which projects a little outside the 
bottom of the anther case and over the rostellum. 
Now let us follow the action of a winged insect, say a bee, 
who has decided to enter the flower in search of honey. It 
alights on the lip; it depresses this so that it can easily enter 
beneath the rostellum. If its weight does not depress it suffi¬ 
ciently to give a free passage it does not matter, for the ros¬ 
tellum readily bends inwards when brushed against, and the 
