January 18,1894. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 
45 
higher ground where the breezes blow more purely and the view is 
richer and wider. Here is a beautiful passage, referring directly 
to the German writer Richter, but which might refer indirectly to 
every earnest student :— 
“ Inanimate Nature itself is no longer an insensible assemblage of 
colours and perfumes, but a mysterious Presence, with which he com¬ 
munes in unutterable sympathies.The infinite Night with 
her solemn aspects, Day, and the sweet approach of Even and Morn, 
are full of meaning for him. He loves the green Earth with her 
streams and forests, her fiowery leas and eternal skies ; loves her with a 
sort of passion, in all her vicissitudes of light and shade; his spirit 
revels in her grandeur and charms ; expands, like the breeze, over wood 
and lawn, over glade and dingle, stealing and giving odours.” 
Who, reading this wonderful word picture, shall say that there 
is nothing in Carlyle for gardeners’ reading, and that I do wrong in 
turning to him for the first of my quiet half-hours ? There is not 
only beauty in it, there is encouragement and inspiration. Like a 
flash of lightning in an inky sky, it shows in letters of flame the 
second of the twin aspects of culture.—W. P. W. 
(To be continued.) 
Cypripedium Fairieano- Lawrencianum . 
Tins is a distinct hybrid Cypripedium, being the result of a cross 
between C Fairieanum and C. Lawrencianum, and when exhibited 
at the Drill Hall, Westminster, on November 30th of last year by 
T. Statter, Esq., Stand Hall, Manchester, an award of merit was 
adjudged for it by the Orchid Committee of the Royal Horticultural 
Society. As will be seen by referring to the illustration (fig. 7), 
the upper sepal is broad, slightly reflexed, white and green, heavily 
veined with deep purple. The petals are long, deflexed, green, 
spotted purple, with hirsute margins. The lip is medium sized 
and a bronzy green shade. The flower from which the engraving 
has been prepared was borne on a scape about 9 inches in 
height. 
Masdevallia pusilla. 
This belongs to the section Saccolabiatse, and is the smallest 
flowered species of the group. It is, says the “ Kew Bulletin,” 
readily distinguished from every other by this character, the less 
open tube of the sepals, and the nearly parallel or scarcely divari¬ 
cate tails. It is perhaps nearest M. troglodytes, E. Morr. The 
sepals are pale yellowish green, densely spotted with dark purple- 
brown, and somewhat suffused with a lighter shade ; the petals 
are yellowish white with a pair of large purple-brown blotches, and 
the lip has many light brown spots and some purplish lines near the 
base. The sac of the lip is unusually small. It flowered at Glas- 
nevin in August 1891, and on subsequent occasions, when it was 
sent for determination by Mr. F. W. Moore, the keeper of the 
Royal Botanic Gardens. 
Trichocentrum albiflorum. 
A CURIOUS little species sent to Kew in 1891 by Mr. Hugo 
Finck, of Cordova. It flowered in September 1892, and again 
during the present year. It is allied to T. candidum, Lindl., 
from Guatemala, which is apparently the only other species in 
which the spur is reduced to a very short sac. T. candidum, 
however, has much longer leaves, and various differences of floral 
structure. In the present species, the “ Kew Bulletin ” observes, 
the spur is distinctly bi-dentate. The flowers are white, with 
the exception of a purple stain at the junction of the lip with 
the column. 
Oncidium Sanderianum. 
A HANDSOME species of tte section Microchila, allied to 
O. annulare, Rchh.f, and O. monachicum, Bchb. /., both of which 
have the peculiarity that the petals remain tightly clasped 
together at their much-crisped tips, forming a ring. As regards 
its general appearance,the “Kew Bulletin” remarks, it approaches 
the Venezulan O. falcipetalum, Lindl., in which the petals are 
falcate and much crisped, though according to ample dried 
specimens they usually become free. The flowers are chocolate- 
brown, the dorsal one with a narrow yellow border. The petals 
are golden yellow broadly barred with brown, except at their 
tips. The lip is brown with a jellow crest, and nearly purple 
side lobes. Plants have recently been imported by Messrs. F. 
Sander & Co., of St. Albans, from Peru, together with dried 
specimens, from which this description has been prepared. 
ENRICHING THE SOIL DURING AUTUMN 
AND WINTER. 
{Concluded from page 571 last vol.) 
In my recent article on this subject I treated on the importance 
of digging heavy soils during the autumn or early winter, in order 
to expose them to the pulverising influence of frost, wind, and 
sunshine, which render them more easily worked at sowing and 
planting time. I have now to deal with soils of varying degrees 
of lightness, which by reason of their porosity are readily worked, 
but, for the same reason, are incapable of long retaining the 
elements of fertility given from time to time. 
The first step towards the improvement of sandy or gravelly' 
soils naturally seems to be to mix with them soil of closer texture' 
to make them more holding, and to prevent the food applied in 
the form of manure being washed into the subsoil before the’ 
crops have had time to appropriate it. This may to some extent 
be effected by the application of clay or marl, a slight annual' 
coating of which, in conjunction with plenty of manure, will work' 
wonders in the improvement of the poorest of soils. The best 
mode of preparing and applying this is to obtain a sufficient 
amount in the summer months, dry and crush it, then spread it 
upon the land in the autumn, when the action of the weather will 
reduce it to a still finer condition. Where no preparation of this 
kind has been made, it may be spread in large lumps upon the 
giound, but reduced to as fine a state as possible before digging 
in. Soils containing much sand or gravel, for the first few years 
during which they are cultivated, require many dressings of manure 
annually, and a gradual deepening if they are to be made pro¬ 
fitable. Cow manure I have found to be unequalled for the 
purpose, as it is both a powerful fertilizer and an excellent agent 
in bringing porous soils into a more retentive condition. Whatever 
kind of manure is employed when ordinary digging is being done 
should be thoroughly decomposed ; for, although manure in a 
fresh state contains more real plant food, yet, being rough, it 
