^88 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 17, 1894. 
is the only white Masdevaliia, and it may be mentioned here that 
the bloom spikes of this species ought not to be removed, as they 
produce flowers several years in succession. Cymbidium Lowianum, 
Epidendrum vitellinum, Lycaste Skiuneri, Coelogyne cristata, 
Phaius grandifolius, and Pleione lagenaria and maculata are all 
useful and popular kinds. Calanthes Veitchi and vestita, and 
Zygopetalum Mackayi are three good winter-blooming Orchids. 
All the species named can be easily wintered in the same house. 
Sufficient piping should be provided to maintain a minimum of 
from 45° to 50°. The Cattleyas and Calanthes ought to have the 
warmest place, while the Odontoglossums, cool Oncidiums, and 
Masdevallias may occupy the coolest position. During the summer 
these latter will, of course, need less heat than the other occu¬ 
pants, and may be grown in a frame as advised on page 338 of the 
Journal of Horticulture. 
CaTTLEYA CITRINA. 
We have few Cattleyas that vary so little in colour as this 
fragrant species. The only variations I have seen are a whitish 
margin to the lip in some flowers, and a dull browny tinge to the 
petals in others. This may be owing to the absence of bright 
colours on the labellum, as when growing wild bees and other 
insects are attracted by these colours on many varieties and cross 
fertilisation thereby effected. 
Some persons have expressed a doubt as to whether this Cattleya 
can be successfully grown in an upright position. There can be no 
reason why it should be so grown. To keep C. citrina in health 
frequent spraying is very helpful, and Nature has provided a means 
whereby the superfluous water is carried off. The flowers, too, 
are shown to greater advantage when growing naturally. After 
flowering this species should, if possible, be induced to rest awhile 
by keeping cool and rather dry at the roots in the Odontoglossum 
house. When it is seen to be starting into growth the cool end of 
the Cattleya house is the best position for the plants. Here they 
may remain until the flower sheaths appear, usually early in the 
new year, when cooler quarters will again be advisable. 
C. citrina will grow well on bare charred blocks or on blocks 
lightly dressed with sphagnum. They must be wired on firmly, 
and look best if suspended at an angle corresponding with the roof 
of the house in which they are growing.—H. R. R. 
THE NUTRITION OF ROOTS. 
I SHALL be glad if any of the numerous readers of the Journal 
of Horticulture who are better versed in the matter than I am will 
correct me if wrong on the following matters connected with the 
nutrition of the roots of plants. I do not at all suppose that what 
I suggest is anything fresh, but quite expect that whatever is 
true in it is not new and whatever is new is not true. Take four 
statements :— 
1. That the roots of plants (with the exception, I suppose, of 
aquatics and bog-lovers) do not and cannot assimilate water, but 
only watery vapour or water in a vaporous form. I have this 
statement from a good scientific authority, and am told by him 
that it is usually accepted by the best botanists. In itself it was 
news to me. 
2. That moisture is always, more or less, rising through the 
soil by the combined effects of capillary attraction and evapora¬ 
tion. This is, as far as it goes, my own statement ; but I take 
it to be generally acknowledged, and it seems to me that if there 
is any watery vapour in the soil this is it. 
3. That therefore, as a deduction from the last two state¬ 
ments, the roots of all plants which like drainage subsist only on 
the moisture which is always rising from beneath through the 
soil, and will not benefit from any liquid till it has reached to or 
below them and commenced to rise, which in favourable circum¬ 
stances it would probably do almost at once. 
4. ihat the rising vaporous moisture, as long as it is in the soil 
and has not yet passed into actual vapour in the air, can and does 
hold in solution the soluble mineral constituents of manure. If 
No. 1, for which I am not responsible, is true, this seems to be true 
also, for how else could such plants receive manorial benefit at all ? 
The only conclusion l wish to draw is, that therefore manure 
placed completely under plants, say Roses, is of nutritive benefit, 
even if the roots be horizontal, near the surface, and do not descend 
into the manure. But these facts, if facts, are surely not generally 
known and acted on ; and if not facts, where is the mistake ? 
About this time last year, when the earth was as iron and the 
^y as brass, some small weeds (annuals and fine grass ; not Spear 
Grass or Bindweed, or any fleshy rooted plants) appeared near the 
middle of one of my gravel paths on a south border. The gravel 
t^here IS quite 6 inches thick, and at such a time and place must 
have been, one would have thought, absolutely dry. I watched the 
hardy strugglers, and they distinctly grew, though very slowly. 
Surely they must have subsisted on moisture rising from far 
beneath, as the roots of bulbs on the Dutch Hyacinth farms do on 
that which ascends to them from the water-bearing stratum below 
through 4 feet of sand. 
The theory does not seem to me to go against any known facts. 
Liquid manure poured on the surface, or water passing through 
manure above the roots, when it arrived below them would soon 
begin to rise and come within reach in an available form ; also 
mulching, hoeing and other forms of preventing evaporation, only 
check it at the surface, and preserve the moisture from passing in 
mere vapour. But surely it is not generally understood that the 
roots of plants only imbibe moisture as it is in the process of being 
evaporated. And my question is, Is it true ?—W. R. Raillem. 
A TRIP TO ANTWERP. 
A Reverie. 
Whex a land lubber is Ibinl.-ing of a voyage he is destined to make 
across the sea for the first time the chief object of his thoughts during 
the week previous is the weather. He taps the barometer every time he 
sees it, and his heart flutters with the atmospheric fluctuations. He 
watches the direction and force of the wind as it moves the smoke and 
the trees, also the movement of the clouds as they scud over him, 
dreading to see them wildly race each other. If he comes near a river the 
wavelets have an inteiest for him such as they never had before, and if 
he sees the suspicion of foam it carries him in fancy to the ponderous 
surgings of the mighty sea. When he opens his daily paper he searches 
nervously for the weather table and scans with solemn thought the 
forecast. He shudders when he reads of a disturbance approaching 
that may develop into a depression of considerable intensity. An anti¬ 
cyclone is then his one great hope. He cares nought at such times for the 
results of elections or divisions in the House. The fall of a government 
is a trifling accident to him in comparison with the moods of the sea. 
That is his one thought. He is a victim of water on the brain and 
dreads an attack of mal de mer. It is not a happy frame of mind to be 
in, but after all the reality may not be so bad as the anticipations ; 
but then it may be even worse, according to—well, the ship and the 
weather. 
The Rough and the Smooth. 
The man who has gone through the rough and the smooth of a 
sea passage views the next trip across complacently. He balances the 
chances philosophically, and takes refuge in the principle of averages. 
He has rejoiced in the delights of a bright day and a calm sea, and 
has been dashed about in darkness by a raging storm. If he take the 
mean between those two extremes he feels he can endure it, but knows 
that his chances are better than that even in the breezy month of 
May. Yet his mind will occasionally revert to the dark time when 
he was caught in the equinoctials. He thinks of his fellow voyager, 
who crossed the North Sea for the benefit of his health and was dis¬ 
appointed on landing that he had not been “sick” on the way, and 
particularly does he think of him on the return passage when a 
tremendous lurch of the vessel sent him spinning across the saloon 
like a shuttlecock and knocked some of his teeth out. He thought the 
end had come, groaned a pathetic “good-bye” as he vanished under 
the table and remained there for twelve hours. That was years ago 
in a small unstable steamer that danced across from a northern port. 
Different, larger, better, even luxurious boats run now, and make the 
best of the weather, whatever it may be. 
The Way to Get There. 
Some persons have such a dread of the sea that they are apt 
to choose the shortest cut across, forgetting that in the narrows the 
rush of waters is stronger, and the surging often more violent 
than in a broader expanse, and hence it is that many a seafarer 
would rather cross the Pacific than the English Channel ; also 
many a busy man, and even a leisurely man, prefers a night to 
a day journey when he crosses over to the Continent. Then, if his 
destination is Belgium or Holland, he takes the increasingly popular 
Great Eastern route. He can have a day of work if a City com¬ 
mercial, or a day of sight-seeing in London if a country visitor, then 
cross over in the night. Here is the record of the latest experience. 
The occasion was a trip to Antwerp ; the object, a sight of the Great 
International Exhibition there, with more particular reference to the 
first Gieat Horticultural Show associated therewith, and the meeting 
with old, genuine, and genial Belgian friends. 
Rail, Sea and River. 
We left Liverpool Street at 8.30 ran through without a pause to 
Harwich, stepping from the platform to the steamer about 10.45, and 
n oved from the pier fifteen minutes afterwards for the east. The night 
was dark, but the sea not rough, while in the saloons and everywhere 
if he ‘ Colchester” all was made cheerful by the electric light, the 
saloon being also rendered home-like by the presence of plants. Seme 
of them had had teveral trips, possibly not always smooth, as they 
