May 2,1895, 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
377 
works specially treating on the different phases of fruit or plant 
culture are worthy additions to your small library. 
Writing. 
“ In graceful curve, and every flowing line, 
Untutored pens by practice learn to shine.” 
Apart from the value of writing a good hand—and in this 
practice is the high road to perfection—as an aid to the memory, 
it is of the first importance. Those subjects which deserve and 
require more attention than obtains from the most careful reading, 
may by transcription form with the reading a system of double 
entry on the mental ledger. Yet much of the value of these 
writing lessons may be lost, unless that scrupulous attention is paid 
to it that it deserves. Do not lose sight of the dual object here 
presented. 
Keep all your transcript books, and mark progress periodically. 
Compare your latest performance with its predecessor. Let the 
criticism be conscientious and impartial, and each improvement, 
however slight, be the incentive to further endeavour. As writing 
is worthy of occupying a considerable portion of spare time, some 
consideration should be paid to the selection of books or articles 
for transcription, choosing such as are models of excellence from a 
literary point of view. In this matter, as indeed in all others, let 
quality more than quantity be the object aimed at. Sentence by 
sentence, with careful attention to punctuation, will not only 
accomplish the ends alluded to, but be the means of the art of 
composition entering into your studies. The school grammar 
may, too, be of service here, and needless to add the dictionary is 
requisite. 
Many gardeners are by reason of the isolated position they 
occupy compelled to live in a little world of their own, thus 
prohibiting that social intercourse with kindred spirits which is as 
profitable as it is enjoyable. In the vicinity of some large cities 
mutual improvement societies have been formed. Should such be 
within your reach you will not, I am sure, ignore the advantages to 
be derived from this union of hearts and hands. 
“ Through mutual intercourse and mutual aid 
Great deeds are done and great discoveries made 
The wise new wisdom on the wise bestow, 
Whilst the lone thinker’s thoughts come weak and slow.” 
My experience of these societies has unfortunately been limited 
to reports of them in the gardening press, as in my journey through 
bothydom I was not so happily situated as to be in touch with any 
of them. Judging by their works, including some admirable essays 
which now and again find their way into print, I think any young 
gardener is wise, if circumstances permit, in linking himself to this 
chain of brotherhood. 
Gardens, like gardeners, are stamped with an individuality. 
Half a dozen establishments within a limited area, and under the 
same local influences of soil and temperature, will yield a variety of 
effects. One place will be noted for its Orchids, or Chrys¬ 
anthemums ; another for its Vines, Pines, or what not, and the 
whole form a nucleus of practical information, which if disseminated 
through the channel of periodical meetings must result in mutual 
benefit. The friendly spirit of rivalry will also spur on the young 
traveller to measure his paces with his fellow competitors, and by 
the exercise of his pen he too can contribute his quota to this 
exchange of thought and practice. The pages of our gardening 
journals are open to those workers and thinkers able to jot down 
their experience in preaentable form, yet how much greater must 
be the mass of valuable information locked up by diffidence arising 
from the want of early training of this faculty. Endeavour by all 
and every means to acquire the pen of a ready writer, to the end 
that your ideas may be “ moulded and clothed in the soft garments 
of their native tongue.”— An Old Boy. 
(To be continued.) 
CCELOGYNE PANDURATA. 
Green flowers are rare, and when they do occur they are usually 
monstrosities, and devoid of any pretensions to beauty. Black is 
also exceedingly rare in flowers, and this renders the above-named 
Orchid all the more remarkable, for it contains a combination of 
the two colours very strongly marked. The sepals and petals are a 
pure bright green, the lip also is green at the margin, but it has a 
black centre and veins of black in the lateral lobes also. The plant 
is of stout growth, and produces a long raceme bearing six or eight 
large flowers in well grown specimens. It is a native of Borneo, 
and has been repeatedly found flourishing on trees in damp 
situations. The plant requires the temperature of a Cattleya house, 
and a shaded position, succeeding well in a basket suspended from 
the roof. The woodcut (fig. GS) represents a flower of this 
remarkable Orchid. 
Dendrobium Cambridgeanum. 
A GOOD basketful of this pretty species makes a fine display ad. 
this season, the drooping habit of growth showing the flowers to 
great advantage when grown this way. The species is deciduous, 
but unlike the majority of this section flowers upon tbe newly 
formed leafy stems. The blossoms are produced in twin-flowered 
peduncles chiefly towards the top of the stems. They are each 
fully 2 inches across, bright golden yellow, with a deep maroon 
blotch on the rounded downy lip. 
This plant usually commences to grow early in the winter, 
and from then until it flowers should have the lightest position 
available in the warmest h^^use, the atmosphere being kept well 
charged with moisture. The leaves must be kept on as long as 
possible, their function being to help swell up the pseudo-bulbs. 
As soon, however, as all are fallen the plants must be kept drier at 
the roots, and in the atmosphere. I usually place this Dendrobium 
out of doors in the summer time, not fully exposed tr the sun, 
but hung in a tree, this treatment causing the plants to bloom 
freely. At the end of August they are taken to the Cattleya house 
and kept dry until signs of growth appear, when they are again 
introduced to more heat. 
D. Cambridgeanum may be grown in three parts of sphagnum 
moss to one of peat, and given good drainage in small suspended 
pots or baskets. It roots and grows freely, and if care is taken to 
thoroughly ripen the growth in the autumn, at the same time 
avoiding shrivelling, it will also produce a fair complement of 
flowers. It is also known as D. ochreatum, and was introduced 
from the Khasia Hills in 1837. 
Propagating Dendrobiums. 
The season having again arrived for cutting away the old stems 
of D. nobile, when this is practised it may not be out of place to 
remind growers of the ease with which this and a few other Den- 
drobiums may be propagated by laying the old pseudo-bulbs on 
boxes or pans of suitable moisture-holding substance. When there 
are good forms that it is wished to propagate no better way can be 
found, and the plants raised are infinitely better than old plants 
