Decsmber 25, 1884. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
571 
wliole of the flower buds are visible without the slightest injury. 
If allowed to remain in heat to flower they cannot be rested 
afterwards in a lower temperature, because they will have started 
into growth, and to check them then would be injurious. Large 
pseudo-bulbs are of very little use unless they are propeidy 
ripened, for they will not flower freely. Prematurely ripened 
pseudo bulbs are very often injured by damp it the utmost care 
is not taken to prevent them when placed under cool treatment 
or when they are introduced into heat to stai't them. Some of 
these vaz’ieties are so floriferous in habit, that although they ai’e 
badly ripened, they may produce a few flowers, but the majority 
of the buds that show frequently turn yellow and fail to come 
forward. This very i-arely takes place in the flower buds of those 
hat have been carefully and judiciously ripened. 
Not only is thorough development in the last stages of im¬ 
portance towards securing healthy plants and abundance of 
flowers in deciduous varieties, but it is equally important for 
those of evergreen habit as well as Oncidiums, Cattleyas, and 
many others. However large and fine pseudo-bulbs may appear, 
they never yield such a gorgeous return as those of small size if 
thorozighly finished and ripened. G-reater care is really neces¬ 
sary after the pseudo-bulbs have been formed than before, for 
upon the after treatment depends whether the plants flower well 
or poorly. 
Starting Dendeobigms. —Plants that have enjoyed a good 
season^ of rest of such varieties as D. nobile, D. Bensonise, D. 
Devonianum, D. heterocarpum, D. Wai’dianum, D. primulinum, 
D. crystallinum, and other early-flowering species of a similar 
habit of growth may be started by introducing them into an 
intermediate temperature. They should be allowed to start 
gradually, and as soon as they commence growing they may be 
arranged in the stove or suspended from the roof if grown on 
blocks or in baskets. It is unwise to remove these from cool 
quarters in which they have been resting to stove treatment, for 
they are excited too suddenly, and often the flower buds turn 
yellow and fail to develope. The moisture of the atmosphere 
will prove ample for them at first until they are removed to the 
stpve and fairly on the move, and even then, if dewed once daily 
with tepid water, it will prove ample until after they have done 
flowering. They should, until the time they are fairly started 
into growth, or until their roots have fairly commenced activity, 
be watered on similar principles to those recommended for them 
when at rest. 
The only water they really need at their roots is just sufficient 
to keep their pseudo-bulbs fresh and plump. It is a great mis¬ 
take to soak them and keep them wet afterwards when first 
started into growth, for they ai'e then sure to be unsatis¬ 
factory. If kept in a wet state the roots will perish and the 
growths will diminish in .size. Water should be applied with 
very great care until the roots are in full action, when it is almost 
impossible to give them too much afterwards.—W. B. 
Shading for Orchids. —A very simple but effectual means of 
shading Orchids is that adopted by Dr. Paterson at Fernfield, Bridge 
of Allan. To avoid the trouble and uncertainty of moveable blinds, 
which require a man in constant attendance to render them really 
serviceable, a permanent shading composed of the following ingre¬ 
dients is employed. A portion of white-lead is reduced to a proper 
thickness by adding turpentine, a little linseed oil and patent driers, 
■which are well incorporated and applied like thin paint to the glass. 
While resisting ordinary showers for several months this mixture can 
be easily removed at any time, if necessary, with a little warm water. 
A great advantage is, that while breaking the force of the sun’s rays 
sufficiently it does not cause a dense shade, and even in dull weather 
does not darken the house too much.—L. 
THOUGHTS ON CURRENT TOPICS. 
When I read Mr. Iggulden’s interesting discussion with himself on 
the subject of trenching, on page 521, I c.uld not help fancying that 
when he was writing he must have been at the same time wondering 
what I should think about his production when it appeared. I am not so 
vain as to class myself with the “ more scientific and more experienced 
men,” whom he anticipates may differ from him ; but when he intimates 
he had better say nothing about the aeration of the subsoil or the disinte¬ 
gration of the ground, lest some of his ‘‘ thinking ” friends should take 
him to task I felt the force of his observation, though I could scarcely 
reconcile the fear expressed in that sentence with the boldness of utterance 
in the first paragraph. He commences with a “don’t care” how far 
“ more scientific and more experienced men ’’ may be at variance with 
his ideas, he will yet express them, and then pretends to tremble lest he 
should start the ghost of a buried thought, which is nothing very formid¬ 
able surely. 
But perhaps, after all, your correspondent wouli like to know what 
I think about his article. On the whole I consider it a very good one. 
It is both seasonable and useful. It may prevent a great waste of labour 
on the part of the earnest and industrious young men, who are very apt 
to bury what little good soil they may find on the surface of gardens 
so deeply that the crops may be half a year before they reach it; while, 
on the other hand, it affords a good excuse for those individuals who 
take no particular delight in using the spade in a thorough manner, 
but are content to scratch over the surface and call it digging. 
The man who finds a garden having a foot in depth of well-tilled 
fertile soil, and commences trenching with a vengeance by turning this 
down and placing a foot in depth of the sour excavated subsoil on the 
top of it for the crops to grow in, makes a great and costly mistake. This 
has been done. I have assisted to do it, and possibly Mr. Iggulden has, 
and if so he may well warn others against committing a similar error. I 
join with him in condemning such a practice as that, and agree where 
such a mistake has been made, that the very best and cheapest method 
of rectifying it is forthwith to trench the ground over again. 
But while I am convinced that evil is done by trenching thoughtlessly 
and extravagantly, and that much land is made worse rather than better 
by the labour thus applied, I am equally convinced that still more 
might be rendered additionally productive by a system of trenching 
rightly conducted. I could give your correspondent the address of a 
gentleman whose garden has during the past summer yielded more and 
better produce than was obtained from it during the previous three years. 
It has been transformed by working it half as deep again as was pre¬ 
viously the custom, and this in one season. Next year it will be worked 
still deeper, and be further improved beyond a doubt. In this case only 
2 or 3 inches of the subsoil was brought up and mixed with the surface 
soil, not placed on the top, the lower stratum being broken and covered 
with vegetable refuse and manure. 
When land is alike good to a depth of 2 feet it will produce much more 
abundantly than if it were of the same quality to the depth of 1 foot 
only. It is quite true that the work of improving the soil downwards 
must be accomplished as it were by gradation ; it is the steady systematic 
work of years, but it is work worth doinsr, as it pays its way, and when 
accomplished it is work well done. The most productive land in the 
country, and that which commands the highest rent, is where the soil is 
in every respect as good to the depth of 2 feet as the best that can be 
imagined but only half that depth. 
I HAVE lately been inspecting some ornamental plantations or belts of 
trees surrounding an estate. The first planted are twenty years old, and 
the land was merely ploughed ; others were added five years afterwards, 
the land being trenched. The trees in these far exceed in health and 
stature those of the former, and show conclusively aud unmistakeably the 
value of deep culture. If the same plots had been cropped with vege¬ 
tables the aggregate value of the produce during those years would have 
been far greater from the trenched than the untrenched portions. Of that, 
I think, there cannot be a doubt. I will go further, and venture a very 
strong opinion that if Apple trees had been planted instead of forest trees, 
and not been “ improved ” by injudicious pruning, those in the trenched 
land would be much better and more profitable now than those in the land 
that had not been deeply worked. 
“ Deep root-action,” says Mr. Iggulden, “ is the ruin of 90 per cent, 
of the fruit trees planted.” My thought on that dictum is this, that 
when trees are ruined by rooting deeply it is because they are in bad 
and not in good soil. And what drives them into the bad but the speedy 
deprivation of moisture and sustenance from the mere surface layer of 
good soil ? “ Mulch”, I think I hear my advocate of a thin larder 
mutter. But 90 per cent, of the fruit trees planted cannot be adequately 
mulched over a series of years. Does your correspondent think that the 
best samples of fruib I will not say at exhibitions, but offered for sale in 
markets, represent the produce of trees upon land only good to the depth 
of a foot or so ? I do not. I know quite well, at least I think I do, 
that many trees under artificial treatment in gardens have too much root 
power, but that is because the gardener is always either nibbling or 
slashing at the top to keep them within prescribed limits. Trees that 
have to be crippled and distorted may easily have too large and rich a 
feeding ground ; but, instead of these forming “ 90 per cent, of trees 
planted,” they do not represent half of that number, I think, if we 
ask the nurserymen. 
No doubt Mr. Iggulden knows very well what he is doing, and can grow 
crops as good as he desires in the garden in his charge without trenching 
the ground ; but there are other gardens and different soiL in which deep 
tillage is essential for the production of good crops, and especially in a 
season like the past ; and there are other cultivators who do not dig half 
deep enough glad to be furnished with an excuse for their practice; 
but I would ask them to believe there is at least some truth in the old 
adage, ” Dig deep to find the gold.” 
Some highly interesting communications have recently appeared on 
the subject of mildew on Hoses. Mr. Worthington Smith’s illustrated 
contribution on page 479 has made the subject clearer than ever it was 
made before, inasmuch as he has shown the indestructibility of the Oi'dium 
spores or seeds of the parasite ; and the practical deduction from that 
