282 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
it in a most unlikely place, just as he was about to return home 
in despair. Such stories could be multiplied ad infinitum, as 
every year collectors are going through toilsome expeditions 
in order to procure these plants. One firm alone, Messrs. 
Sanders, at St. Albans, have often as many as twenty collectors 
working at one time. In the spring of 1894 they had two in 
Brazil, two in Columbia, two in Peru and Ecuador, one in 
Mexico, one in Madagascar, one in New Guinea, three in India, 
Burmah, and Straits Settlements. It is much to be regretted 
that orchid-growers of this country are so exacting in their 
demands that, as has been already pointed out, some species 
are becoming extinct in their native habitats. In 1890 the 
number of species which flowered at K^w was 766, and besides 
all these, imported from tropical lands, the numerous hybrids 
bi ought out each year by large firms, such as Veitch, Bull, 
or Low, or from private collections, must be taken into 
account to form an estimate of the numbers of orchids in 
cultivation in England. The value of these orchid collections 
is immense. When some of the finest specimens are gathered 
together at a show, such as that for many years held in the 
grounds of the Temple by the Royal Horticultural Society, 
the aggregate worth of the plants has been computed at about 
£100,000. New varieties pass hands privately for very large 
sums, while at public auctions as much as a thousand guineas 
have been given for a small plant. 1 
In the hasty review that has been taken of the progress of 
Horticulture, the prominent position of the Royal Gardens at 
Kew has not been properly pointed out. They were begun 
by the Princess of Wales, mother of George III., about 1760. 
In the extremely quaint and original poem, The Botanic 
Garden, in 1791, Erasmus Darwin alludes to the wonders of 
Kew in his usual stilted verse : 
“ So sits enthroned, in vegetable pride, 
Imperial Kew by Thames’ glittering side ; 
Obedient sails from realms unfurrow’d bring 
For her the unnam’d progeny of Spring ; 
1 On March 22, 1906, at Messrs. Prothero and Morris’s, 122 lots realized 
£5,342. Odontoglossum crispum Pittianum (three bulbs with two 
leaves) fetched 1,150 guineas, Odontoglossum crispum F. K. Sander 
(one bulb, one growth) 800 guineas, etc. 
