January 25, 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
327 
Cutler, read the report of the committee and statement 
of accounts for the Jubilee year, the latter of which was 
published in our last. The report congratulated the 
subscribers on the grand progress which the Institution 
is making, and especially upon the success which 
attended the efforts to signalise the Jubilee year by 
raising the sum of £3,000, to enable the committee to 
place on the fund all the candidates who failed at the 
previous election. Thanks to the munificence of the 
chairman of the annual festival, Mr. Leopold de 
Rothschild, of other members of his family, and of 
other leading patrons of horticulture, the amount 
received ou that occasion was £2,451, the largest 
amount ever received at an annual festival, and 
£994 9s. 9 d. was contributed and collected by gardeners 
by means of collecting cards, making the total amount 
received £3,445 15s. Id ., which, with the legacy 
bequeathed by the late John Rylands, Esq., enabled the 
committee to distribute during the year the largest 
amount that had ever been paid in pensions, and to add 
£2,300 to their funded property. At the solicitation 
of Mr. Leopold de Rothschild, Mr. Harry J. Veitch 
had consented to preside at the next festival, and the 
committee trust that the nursery and seed trade, and 
gardeners especially, will accord him the greatest 
support in their power, so that there shall be no falling 
off in the subscription list. During the year fourteen 
pensioners had died, four leaving widows, who had 
been placed on the pension list in accordance with 
Rule 6. The number of pensioners on the list at the 
end of the year was 149, to be increased that day to 
154. 
Mr. Lowrie moved that the report and statement of 
accounts be adopted, and that the best thanks of the 
subscribers be accorded to the committee of manage¬ 
ment for their valuable services during the past year. 
The motion was seconded by Mr. George Paul, and 
carried unanimously. 
Mr. Harry J. Veitch proposed, and Mr. Harry 
Turner seconded the election of Lord Revelstoke and 
C. Czarnikow, Esq., as vice-presidents in the places of 
the late Sir Morton Peto and Mr. Robert Marnock. 
Carried unanimously. 
Mr. Harry Turner proposed that Mr. Veitch be 
again elected treasurer, and that the best thanks of the 
meeting be tendered to him for the care and attention 
he had devoted to the finances of the institution during 
the year. Seconded by Mr. Osborn and carried 
nem. con. 
Mr. B. Wynne proposed that Mr. J. F. Meston, Mr. 
James Webber, Mr. A. Watkins, Mr. W. Y. Baker, 
and Mr. S. Osborne be re-elected members of the com¬ 
mittee ; and that Mr. Harry Turner and Mr. G. 
Wythes be elected in the places vacant by the retire¬ 
ment of Mr. J. Sweet, and the decease of Mr. J. Ridout. 
Seconded by Mr. Lowrie and agreed to unanimously. 
Mr. Osborne proposed, and Mr. Lowrie seconded 
the re-election of Mr. John Lee, Mr. J. F. Meston, 
and Mr. Jesse Willard, as auditors, and this also was 
carried unanimously ; Mr. John Lee returning thanks. 
Mr. John Lee, as he had done for many years past, 
proposed the re-election of Mr. E. R. Cutler, as 
secretary (for the forty-ninth time), and the motion 
being seconded by the chairman, was carried with 
applause. 
On the motion of the chairman, seconded by Mr. 
Brush, the following persons were elected pensioners :— 
Emily Friend, Mark Kebblethwaite, Eden Georgina 
Murray, John Skene, John Trotter, and John Wain- 
wright, in accordance with Rule 6. 
The meeting then appointed Mr. Harry Turner, 
Mr. A. Veitch, and Mr. B. Wynne scrutineers, and 
adjourned until half-past five, when the following 
persons were declared duly elected :—James Baillie, 
Sophia Burt, Mary Ann Milroy, Elizabeth Parker, 
Sarah Brush, Robert Cox, George William Young, 
Maria Milley and James Robinson. The number of 
votes recorded for each of the candidates will be found 
in our advertising columns, and we may add here that 
no less than seventy-seven voting papers—representing 
702 votes—were rendered invalid, all but three of them 
being unsigned. 
A most cordial vote of thanks to the chairman con¬ 
cluded the business. 
In the evening the annual friendly dinner was held, 
under the presidency of Mr. Edmond Yates, and at 
which there was again a large attendance of the 
supporters of the institution. The after-dinner pro¬ 
ceedings were of a purely social and entertaining 
character, and included a capital vocal programme, 
carried out under the direction of Miss Belval. The 
loyal toasts having been duly honoured, the chairman, 
in a speech full of humour, proposed the toast of 
“ Continued success and prosperity to the Gardeners’ 
Royal Benevolent Institution,” which he characterised 
as certainly the most prosperous institution he had 
ever been interested in. He had been interested, 
himself, in horticulture from his childhood, when his 
first practical experience of the gardeners' art com¬ 
menced with the cultivation of Mustard and Cress on a 
bit of flannel. In his career as a literary man, he had 
discovered that there was no profession so wholesome, 
so natural, and so cleanly as horticulture, and he 
hoped that his interest in so pure and so ennobling a 
subject would be continued until he was “dibbled in ” 
at Kensal Green. 
Mr. John Lee, in response, alluded to the fact that 
of the twenty-five applicants for the Pension that day, 
only five had been subscribers to the institution, 
which he thought read a lesson which all gardeners 
should take seriously to heart. Young men in par¬ 
ticular, he urged, should become subscribers, so that 
should they require help in their old age, they might 
be able to claim it as a right, instead of having to 
undergo the worry and anxiety of election. Mr. N. N. 
Sherwood proposed “The Health of the Chairman,” 
which was most cordially received, and in acknowledging 
the toast, Mr. Yates said that was not the first time 
he had been at their social gatherings, for in 1861 he 
first attended their annual festival, when the chairman 
of the day was the Rev. John Bellew, who was endowed 
with a splendid voice, and who made a most admirable 
speech. Mr. Parkinson proposed “The President, 
Vice-Presidents, and Committee,” which was acknow¬ 
ledged by Mr. Herbert J. Adams and Mr. George 
Munro. The chairman gave “The Treasurer, the 
chairman of the 'next anniversary festival,” who, he 
was certain, would on that occasion, as he had done on 
many others, bear away the palm, and tell them 
“ vitch vosvitcli.” Mr. Veitch, in reply, regretted that 
so few subscribers were elected that day, but hoped the 
time would come when they would be able each year to 
put on all who had been subscribers to the funds. 
He was particularly pleased that Mrs. Milroy had been 
elected, because her case was a most deserving one. 
Her husband had been a subscriber for twelve years 
before he died, and his widow had waited for more than 
twenty years before asking for assistance. He felt 
some diffidence in taking the chair next summer after 
the remarkable success of last year ; but in the interest 
of the institution he hoped all his friends would support 
him to the fullest extent of their power on that 
occasion. The other toasts given were “The nursery 
and Seed Trade,” responded to by Mr. G. Paul and Mr. 
Moss; “The Guests,” acknowledged by Sir John 
Monkton ; “The Secretary,” whom the chairman said 
he had known between thirty and forty years, and had 
always found to be one of the kindest and most genial 
beings, and who never seemed to think of anything 
but the institution he had so long and so ably served ; 
feelingly responded to by Mr. Cutler ; and “ The roof 
we are under,” acknowledged by Mr. Cathay. 
-- 
EXPERIMENTS WITH MANURE 
IN ORCHID CULTURE.* 
By F. W. Moore, Curator Royal Botanic Garden, 
Dublin. 
Gardeners there are, but fortunately they are few, 
who boldly assert that they can succeed with anything 
they attempt to cultivate. Those who have had ex¬ 
perience of growing a mixed collection of even small 
dimensions, lend but a cynical ear to such assertions, 
and all reasonable gardeners will readily assent that 
their cynicism is amply justified. Is there a truthful 
gardener who can positively state that he has never 
met a plant which successfully defied all his efforts to 
induce it to flourish ? I think not ! If such there be, 
I must be either unusually unskilful or unusually 
unlucky, for I am not ashamed to state that I have had 
to give up many plants as a bad job, and what proved 
to me the most vexatious part of the affair was that 
I saw these same plants growing vigorously with others ; 
and although I made a fresh start, armed with copious 
notes and information, I failed ignominiously, and, in 
the end, gave in. Fortunately, however, the list of 
such endeavours is not always one of failure. There 
have been successes—successes achieved by trying new 
methods and new materials, and these served to spur 
on in the cases of failure. 
The history of one’s failures is not always unpleasant 
reading, as one can generally trace back to them the 
foundation of what in other cases proved to be the 
commencement of a system, carried on afterwards with 
signal success. Many experiments which have been 
made, and from which important results have accrued, 
*Read before Scottish Horticultural Association, Jan. 7th, 1S90. 
would never have been undertaken but for the failure 
of some favourite plant or set of plants. A case in 
point is Nepenthes Rajah ; thrice I got this plant, 
twice I lost it, and the third plant now flourishes. 
V r hen I obtained it first I was recommended to grow 
it, if possible, in hot vapour, advice which was 
frequently repeated to me afterwards ; but treating it 
as nearly as I could to these instructions, ended in the 
death of the plant. On the second occasion I was 
recommended to grow it in cold vapour ; was speciously 
informed that it could not fail with such treatment ; 
that the fact had been amply demonstrated. Again I 
adopted the advice given, and again I lost my plant. On 
the third occasion 1 merely begged a plant, but did 
not beg advice ; I considered long how I would treat it, 
my inclination leaning strongly to the hot system. 
Eventually I determined to try a betwixt and between, 
and brought it to the cool Orchid house, where there 
was a moist atmosphere with a minimum night tempera¬ 
ture of 50° Fahr. In this house it grew apace, and 
what is more important, continues to grow and flourish, 
so that it is now a fine vigorous plant, each succeeding 
leaf being larger than that which preceded it. 
In almost all classes of plants,The cultivator meets 
such a plant as this Nepenthes Rajah, a plant of 
whims and caprices, a plant which seems determined 
to make itself a cause of vexation to its unfortunate 
possessor, and in no family of plants are these ill- 
dispositioned obstructionists so rampant as in the 
great and lovely family of Orchids. Would not a 
history of the failures of even the most famous growers 
of Orchids fill volumes ? Men, whose experiences and 
successes one delights to read or hear of; men, in 
whose footsteps one humbly endeavours to follow, even 
these meet with failure. In one place Phalsenopsids 
flourish, in another they cannot be induced to grow. 
In one collection the species of Antectochilus grow 
freely and are admired by all, in others they cannot 
be kept over a twelvemonth. Here Disas grow like 
weeds, there they will not grow at all. 
Pleioxes. 
For a long time I signally failed with Pleiones, 
and well I remember how that genial and highly 
successful grower, Dr. Paterson, enjoyed my discom¬ 
fiture, all the time trying to put me in the light way, 
not only by giving explicit directions, but by supplying 
me with nice, well-developed pieces with which to 
make a fresh start. His chief advice was, “Don’t 
starve them ” ; but beyond the usual ingredients of an 
Orchid compost, so familiar by name to all who read 
cultural directions for Orchids, I could think of 
nothing but dried cow manure for them. This I tried, 
but not with thorough success, as it seemed to de¬ 
compose too rapidly, and get filled with minute worms, 
which quickly pulverised the soil, turning it sour. 
Liquid manure I next fell back on, but, use it ever so 
discreetly, it did not seem to be the right thing, and 
my plants only grew, they did not flourish. Five 
years ago, over the crocks I spread a good layer of i-in. 
bones, and these seemed to give the stimulus that was 
required. Once the plants started they went ahead 
rapidly, and in November of that year I was the happy 
possesser of my first respectable pans of Pleione ; but 
still they fell short of those which had been sent to me 
from Scotland, both in size of bulbs and numbers of 
flowers. While debating what to do with them, a 
friend -wrote, asking me whether I had ever tried 
chemical manure with Orchids, and stating that he had 
heard of its being used with success, the special kind 
being Fish Potash Guano. I replied that I had not, and 
there and then made up my mind to subject my long- 
suffering Pleiones to a further experiment. I ordered 
some Fish Potash, and selecting the strongest pan, I 
mixed a pinch through the soil, incorporating the 
bones this time also, instead of putting them in a 
layer over the crocks, as I had no longer any doubt as 
to whether they were acceptable to the plant. On 
turning the plants out I had found the bones full of 
roots. They had apparently approached them on all 
sides and entered the crevices, clinging firmly to them, 
and I felt quite convinced that the “ little something ” 
that was wanting in the soil, the presence or absence 
of which was the turning point on which the healthy 
chemical changes depended, that meant the life or 
death of the plant, was supplied to some extent by 
these bones. The other pans I potted as before 
without any chemical manure. From the very first 
growth the beneficial action of the manure was 
apparent. The pan in which it was outpaced the 
others from the start. The leaves grew more rapidly, 
were larger, and of a deeper green, and as a natural 
sequence the pseudo-bulbs were also larger. It must 
not be imagined that the other pans did not do well. 
They did excellently, even better than the year before, 
but still they were distinctly inferior to the pan with 
the manure. Now came the point—was it growth 
which would not flower well ? About this I felt no 
little anxiety, which'was dispelled when in November 
I called my foreman, and charging him to tell “the 
truth, aud nothing but the truth,” I pointed to my 
pan of Pleione maculata, and asked him was it as good 
as that we had had from Scotland. His laconic reply— 
“ better”—was what I hoped for, and since I received 
it, I have never potted a Pleione without adding a 
pinch of Fish Potash, and never have had cause to be 
anything but satisfied with the results. Last year a pan 
of Pleione maculata, 12 ins. in diameter, carried 137 
flowers, and formed as beautiful a picture as any plant 
lover could look at. 
(To be continued.) 
