732 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
July 19, 1890. 
but it seemed a pity not to do the thing properly while 
we were about it, so we had a solid house built— 
masons, pails, and boys for a fortnight, and the entire 
garden laid under mortar and broken bricks. The wire 
fencing was not so very expensive, but the setting of it 
and the uprights wet#. Nests and perches occupied a 
carpenter and a half—that is, his boy—for another 
week or two, and then we thought we had done ; but 
we found a list of “accessories ” at the end of the book, 
and it seemed a pity not to be complete after taking so 
much trouble, so we ordered these too. They were : — 
1, A trench filled with dry sand and ashes for the fowls 
to roll in ; 2, another trench containing manure, which 
must be frequently renewed, in which they may amuse 
themselves by scraping : 3, two squares of turf on 
which they may pasture and divert themselves ; 4, a 
thick bushy hedge in which they may play hide and 
seek ; 5, a shed or coping under which they may take 
shelter from the rain and preserve their complexions 
from the sun ; 6, stone or wooden cisterns with pure 
water, in which they may bathe ; 7, bathing machines 
and Pears’ soap. 
I had no idea before studying this work to what a 
pitch of civilisation fowls had reached. I knew, as 
everyone does, that they had special information about 
the weather and were disputatious and dictatorial ; but 
I did not know that they were so luxurious in their 
manner of life or required so much amusement to keep 
them lively. 1 always imagined that a fowl could 
keep his spirits up under any circumstances ; but items 
1, 2, 3, and 4 seem to point to periods of nervous 
depression which have to be soothed and stimulated. 
I really felt quite nervous as to whether the accommo- 
tion would suit the two respectable hens and a highly 
ornamental cock with which we began our experiments. 
The supercilious way in which they glanced round 
their domain, and then promptly retired screeching to 
the darkest perch in the corner, made me feel quite 
apologetic ; and I went in to tea in the lowest possible 
spirits, feeling that I had committed a grievous sin in 
hospitality. 
“I do hope they will be comfortable,” Clara said, 
remorsefully; “but they don’t seem to take to the 
place, do they ? ” 
“I wish,” said I, “that we had had the baths 
Aspinalled ; the tin looks very poor and meagre.” 
“We can still have it done,” my wife replied; 
“ poor things ! dumb animals have a great feeling for 
colour.” 
The question of food of course exercised us sadly. 
There seemed so many things that were capable of 
disagreeing with fowls. There was nothing like the 
books for disagreeing with one another. We began 
with boiled barley, until we found a statement which 
said that it was death to chickens to give them super¬ 
fluous moisture, whether externally or internally. So 
then we gave dry barley ; and they ate more in a day 
than a pair of carriage horses, besides consuming all 
the waste from the house and a certain quantity of 
butcher’s meat and fish, which the books recommended 
to be supplied if we wanted the birds to lay well, which 
of course, we did. Rice and potatoes were also recom¬ 
mended ; but “it is indispensable,” says one author, 
"to give the potatos to fowls not only in a boiled 
state, but hot—not too hot, however, to burn their 
mouths.” So Clara stood every day with her watch in 
her hand beside the cook, and a thermometer so as to 
be sure about the exact temperature. 
But Clara never could account for our housekeeping 
bills nearly doubling about this time, for we certainly 
did not eat any more. 4t last I saw a leg of mutton 
which had only had about a pound of meat cut from it 
lying in the poultry-yard ; and though cook wept when 
I mentioned it, and said she for one could not bear to 
starve dumb creatures, I did not feel that I could afford 
to feed fowls in that way—especially as we never got 
any eggs, except now and then in the middle of the 
day, when I happened to be in the garden, and a hen 
would show off her capabilities to astonish me. The 
fowls clucked so every morning that we always expected 
to find plenty of eggs in the nests ; but we never did, 
though once we found, a broken, one outside. We were 
obliged to depend wholly on a brother of the cook’s, 
who kept fowls, and was more fortunate than we were, 
and who supplied us at seven a shilling for many weeks. 
At last a neighbour sent in to say that she had watched 
our cook’s brother visit our hen-house regularly every 
morning, and she thought we ought to know about 
it, as he invariably left with a basket of eggs. We had 
a new patent Bramah lock (which seems appropriate 
for fowls), put up, and for about three days had about 
seven eggs a day ; and then the hens all suddenly 
ceased laying. We altered the food, and gave them 
fresh exercise-ground, painted the doors, frescoed the 
walls, and did every thing we could think of to raise 
their spirits—even introducing a fresh pair, warranted 
in full laying order, to arouse a feeling of emulation. 
It was all no good, however. The rival cocks fought, 
and both had to be killed ; and the new hen intro¬ 
duced roup, and in a day or two we had the entire 
yard breathing like steam-engines ; and more than half 
of them died. Two of the remainder caught inflamma¬ 
tion of the lungs from damp turf, and the cock had the 
gout. Rheumatic fever laid two others low, and the 
doctor attended every day. We started a cemetery 
under the shrubs, and the demand for tombstones was 
exceedingly brisk. At last only one hen remained, and 
she was a singularly obstinate female, who persisted in 
laying an egg on a perch every morning ; from which, 
of course, it fell and broke regularly. Finally she 
settled into a nest with a china egg in it, and refused 
to be dislodged. We introduced alien eggs under 
her ; but she ate them by degrees and remained 
faithful to the China counterfeit. We were getting 
disheartened about poultry by this time ; it seemed 
hardly worth while to keep them for the sake of their 
crowing, which was all we got out of them. So we turned 
the place into a rabbit-house for the children, and we 
think we see our way clear to doing well with fancy 
sorts. At any rate a rabbit does not crow, whatever 
else you may say about him .—A Suburban Pessimist in 
St. James’ Gazette. 
--—>$<--- 
ORCHID NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 
Orchis latjfolia, Madeira var. 
The British form of this hardy Orchis is about 12 ins. 
in height, and beautiful even at that, but as we proceed 
along the West Coast of Africa from the north 
southwards we meet with forms of a much larger size. 
On the neighbouring islands some giant flowers are 
met with, and that from Madeira would scarcely be 
recognisable alongside of its British representative by 
any except an experienced eye. The stem of a plant, in 
the rockery at Kew stands about a yard high ; the 
lower part is clothed with ovate-lanceolate dark green 
leaves, which pass upwards gradually into the bracts, 
the lowermost ones of which are of great length, over¬ 
topping the flowers. The latter are relatively large, 
purple, and perfectly unspotted. The spur is also 
purple, inflated or somewhat compressed, and as long 
as the ovary and pedicel combined. A group of such 
plants in a moist, somewhat shaded peat bed would 
certainly produce a handsome effect. 
Stanhopea tigrina superba. 
Two causes contribute very much in preventing 
Stanhopea from attaining great popularity. In the 
first place the flowers are of short duration, and 
secondly, the strong odour emitted by them is offensive 
to many persons. They are not, however, without 
their redeeming points—viz., free flowering, easy of 
culture, and robust constitution. Who amongst Orchid 
lovers has not gazed with admiration at the gorgeous 
Stanhopea tigrina superba as it pushed its strong 
scapes through the bottom of its basket, and gradually 
watched the developing and unfolding of its quaint and 
curious flowers, without being ambitious to give it a 
place in his collection? This lovely Stanhopea was in 
grand perfection a few weeks ago in the collection 
formed by E. Hopper, Esq., Riverside, Morpeth, who 
is an ardent lover of the genus.— J. McNab. 
Cattleya Mossi^e Wageneri. 
The flowers of this variety are of great size, and have 
a bold and telling appearance. The bloom is pure 
white, with the exception of a large golden yellow 
blotch on the disc, and which extends on to the side 
lobes in such a way as is characteristic of many of the 
varieties of C. Mossiae. The terminal lobe of the lip is 
very conspicuously bifid, and more open than usual, 
with the sides beautifully undulated. The large ovate 
petals are also undulated at the margins. It was first 
described by Reichenbach in Xenia Orchidacea, i., 
p. 28, t. 13. It flowered finely in the nursery of 
Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons recently. 
Oncidium Papilio Kramerianum. 
This Oncidium is generally considered as a distinct 
species, and although the pseudo-bulbs and spotted 
leaves are very similar, the two may be distinguished 
by their flower stems, whether they bear blooms or not. 
Those of O. Papilio are compressed and two-edged, 
while those of the variety under notice are terete and 
curiously thickened at the nodes. The flowers of both 
forms vary considerably in their markings. In fine 
forms of 0. Papilio Kramerianum the petals are heavily 
blotched with orange-brown, while the undulated lip has 
a broad margin of the same colour, or this may be 
broken up into a line of blotches while the central 
portion is yellow. 
CCELOGYNE ASPERATA. 
The habit of this plant is similar to that of C. 
Massangeana, but the flowers are much larger, more 
decided in colour, and produced in fewer-flowered 
racemes. The latter are pendulous, and vary as to the 
number of flowers, according to the vigour of the plant. 
The sepals and petals are pale yellow, the upper sepal 
being broader than the others. The three-lobed lip is 
creamy white, with two ridges running longitudinally 
along the centre. The whole of the disc and the side 
lobes are heavily coloured with brownish orange. The 
flowers are fragrant with a somewhat peculiar odour. 
A well-flowered plant has a fine appearance, owing to 
the size of the blooms and their well-marked colours. 
The species is, perhaps, better known in gardens under 
the name of C. Lowii. It may be seen in one of the 
houses in the nursery of Messrs. J. Teitch & Sons, 
Chelsea. 
Cypripedium barbatum nigrum. 
The ehief value of this variety depends upon its free- 
flowering nature, and the very dark, brownish purple 
hue of the lip, which serves by contrast with the sepals 
and petals to give tone to the whole flower. As far as 
colour goes it is something in the way of C. b. magni- 
fieum or C. b. major, but the flowers are smaller and 
similar to those of the type, except in the dark hue of 
the lip. A batch of flowering plants may be seen in 
the nursery of Messrs. J. Peed & Sons, Roupell Park, 
Tulse Hill. 
Stanhopea tigrina. 
The flowering season of this Stanhopea has now 
commenced, and different individuals will continue to 
come into bloom during the rest of the summer months. 
The flowers are of huge size, and borne' on short 
racemes, pendent from the baskets in which the plants 
are grown. The sepals are richly blotched in irregular 
splashes with dark purplish brown on an orange-yellow 
ground colour. The petals aTe smaller and less con¬ 
spicuous ; but the huge and curiously-formed lip is a 
marvel in itself. The odour of this species is rather 
powerful. Some specimens are flowering in the 
nursery of Messrs. J. Peed & Sons, Roupell Park, 
Tulse Hill. 
Broughtonia sanguinea. 
When well grown a pretty effect is produced by this 
Jamaica Orchid. It may be grown on a block of wood 
tied on with a little moss, or even better in a shallow 
basket, by which the moisture will be better retained 
about the roots. It is allied to Lielia, but the lip is 
more nearly flattened out after the fashion of an 
Epidendrum of the Barkeria section. The flowers are 
of a rich dark red, and produced in racemes. The 
sepals are lanceolate, and, as well as the elliptic petals, 
are spreading. The lip is somewhat rhomboid and 
cucullate at the base, slightly clasping the short 
column. A fine piece of it, suspended from the roof of 
the cool Orchid house at Kew, has been flowering freely 
for some time past. 
Freak of Epidendrum vitellinum majus. 
A singular freak of nature has just been brought to 
our notice by Mr. W. Swan, gardener to G. C. Raphael, 
Esq., Castle Hill Gardens, Englefield Green. He sent 
us a raceme of flowers of Epidendrum vitellinum majus, 
every flower of which exhibited a remarkable develop¬ 
ment of the lip and column. Four other scapes on the 
same plant were in a similar condition. The sepals 
were quite Dormal, and the petals nearly so. The lip, 
however, on the third organ of the inner series was 
separated from the column, rather fleshy, incurved on 
the sides, but keeled on the back, and coloured like the 
petals, although normally it should be yellow. Alter¬ 
nating with the petals and lip were three deeply biparted 
segments coloured like the rest of the flower, except 
on the contiguous edges of the two halves, which gave 
the impression of their being stamens, the two halves 
representing the anther lobes. These bifid organs were 
also shortly stalked. The centre of the flowers was 
occupied by three terete or narrow processes, shallowly 
furrowed along their face. They were somewhat paler 
