November 28.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
129 
by which the meu may take cave of their own health as 
well as that of the plants committed to their charge. 
Causes enough'for grumbling there may yet be; for any¬ 
body may find these if they like the mood of mind that 
is always on the look-out for them; yet contrasting the 
position of young gardeners now, —their comfortable 
rooms and their access to books,—witli the discomfort, 
privations, and self-sacrifices, with which many of their 
older brethren, such as some of those who write in these 
pages, had to contend; I should not think of enrolling 
them hi the first ranks of that worthy class who “ are 
prosecuting knowledge under difficulties.” 
j This seeming digression will not be without its use, 
if young gardeners are led to study their own physical 
l nature, and the necessity of pure air for the possession 
of health; and if even a very few of those gentle¬ 
men who patronise the cottager, if they had not done 
so before, would examine the condition of the lodg- 
; ings they provide for their gardeners and assistants. 
Once show that you are interested in the importance of 
their breathing a pure uncontaminated ah in their own 
rooms, and gardeners, young or old, who—with all their 
| faults, are a reflecting class—will so act, that our corre¬ 
spondents will not have reason to complain, as some 
j have done of late, that their plants are covered with 
I mildew owing to a stagnant atmosphere ; or that the 
j leaves of others are parboiled with sun and collected 
vapour combined, because the gardener will not move a 
; sash, let the weather be what it will, until a certain hour 
j of the morning. Let it not be forgotten, however, that 
under the most careful treatment allowance for failures 
must be made. Ventilation is a ticklish matter, especi¬ 
ally in winter, and all the more so when, as in small 
places, plants of very dissimilar habits are collected toge¬ 
ther ; and the more especially if some are intended to 
be grown and others to enjoy then - season of rest. Excess 
of caution in one direction often leads to an opposite 
evil; you may fly from stagnant moist air to an air, 
whether hot or cold, so dry that it desiccates the plants 
by robbing them of their moisture, and then their dry 
shrivelled appearance becomes a matter of astonishment! 
A first principle to be observed in all attempts at 
ventilating plant-houses, is the securing a much lower 
temperature at night than during the day; the regu¬ 
lating of temperature not so much by a fixed scale, as by 
the presence or absence of light. Whatever time men 
may feed, the assimilating processes are carried on 
chiefly during the repose of night, but in plants, the as¬ 
similating of solid matter to their substance can only take 
place during the day. Hence the importance of having 
the greatest degree of expansion by heat counteracted 
by the assimilating process in sun light. Thus only can 
firm sturdy growth be secured. The expansion of the 
vegetable tissues at night, is mere lengthening out of 
j what the plant contained or absorbed, without the 
j addition of solid matter. Hence, in all cases, but 
' especially where anything like forcing is attempted, the 
I superiority of the modern practice of having a low tem¬ 
perature at night over that which prevailed only a few 
| years ago, when the injury which would have taken 
place from the unnatural practice of keeping strong fires 
: and close houses at night, was only counteracted by ad¬ 
mitting large quantities of air during the day, so as to 
allow a rise of only five or ten degrees at most,—while 
now by maintaining a low temperature at night, we 
think nothing of a rise in sunshine of 20°, and more. 
One advantage of this system is that it is the cheapest; 
a second feature is, that even for tender plants a few 
visits to the ventilating openings during the day will 
be sufficient; aud there will not be the untimely wearing 
of shoes, aud an ever aud anon rattling of sashes or ven¬ 
tilators ; and third, as it is the most natural, so it is the 
most successful. The plant requires repose at night, 
| and the laying ,up a fresh store of oxygen: present it 
with the stimulus of heat at night, and then so far be¬ 
come a follower of nature as to allow your house to rise 
pretty well with the sun during the day, and the ex¬ 
citability of the plant will become exhausted, and dis¬ 
appointment will dash your hopes, even when you 
thought they were upon the point of realisation. From 
this cause, and others to be mentioned, I have seen 
flowers dropping when their full expansion was expected; 
and grapes not only red when they were expected to be 
black, but even not ripe so soon as those which scarcely 
received any assistance from fire-heat at all. 
R. Fish. j 
(To be continued.) 
HOTHOUSE DEPARTMENT. 
EXOTIC ORCHID ACEfE. 
ORCHIDS THAT THRIVE BEST IN POTS. 
When we commenced writing about the treatment of ; 
these singular and interesting plants, we proposed to j 
divide them into three sections :—First, such as thrive | 
best in baskets; second, such as thrive best on blocks; 
and, lastly, such as thrive best in pots. The two former 
we have already presented to our readers, and we now 
proceed to the third and last section. We shall, in this 
section, follow the same plan of selecting only such as 
are from some desirable quality really worth growing. 
Cultivators, especially beginners, should pay especial 
attention to this point, and for this reason principally, 
that it costs no more—either of beat, moisture, or atten¬ 
tion—to grow a good fine species, than it does an indif¬ 
ferent, or merely botanical, or worthless kind. Hence, 
in any collection, when an unknown, newly-imported, or 
even known species flowers, and is not handsome, sweet- 
scented, or possessed of some other interesting quality, 
let it either be thrown away at once, or sent to some 
botanic garden, to be kept for the purposes of science 
only. 
When purchasing orchids, buy nothing but what is 
really worth growing, and then the collection so selected 
will always be interesting and increasing in value. As 
far as lies in our power, or knowledge, The Cottage ' 
Gardener add The Cottage Gardeners’ Dictionary j 
shall only mention, or contain, such orchids as answer i 
that description; and such as ought to be in every col- j 
lection that has any pretension to rank as one. 
Anguloa Clowesii (Mr. Clowes’s) ; Columbia. — i 
Sepals and petals clear and bright pale yellow; lip pure j 
white; flowers large, cup-shaped, and very handsome, i 
A noble plant. 42s. 
A. Ruckerii (Mr. Rucker’s); Columbia. — Sepals 
and petals rich brownish orange; lip greenish yellow; | 
flowers very large. A handsome species. 42s. 
A. soperba (Superb A.); Peru.—Flowers of a rich : 
chocolate red, blotched with dull purple ; scape short j 
and few-flowered. Very scarce—not to be purchased at 
present. 
A. uniflora (Single Flowered A.) ; Columbia. —: 1 
Flowers white; lip tinged with yellow. The flowers j 
have a very agreeable perfume. 42s. 
Culture. —This very handsome small tribe of orchids 
are all well worth every care and attention of the culti- | 
vator ; they are large strong-growing plants, and there- j 
fore require, when fully grown, large pots. A compost 
of rough fibrous peat and half-decayed leaves, with 
plenty of drainage, will grow them well. Being natives 
of the temperate regions of South America, they do not j 
require the hottest part of the house, yet they must have, ! 
when growing, a warmer temperature than the Mexican j 
house ; the cooler end of the Indian house will be more j 
suitable. When growing they require a liberal supply 
