d and neighbours. Interesting
questions arise in surveying fine specimens side by side, in flower, all
attributed to a cross between _Odontoglossum Lindleyanum_ and
_Odontoglossum crispum Alexandrae_, and all quite different. But we must
get on to the ninth house, from which the tenth branches.

Here is the stove, and twilight reigns over that portion where a variety
of super-tropic genera are "plumping up," making roots, and generally
reconciling themselves to a new start in life. Such dainty, delicate
souls may well object to the apprenticeship. It must seem very degrading
to find themselves laid out upon a bed of cinders and moss, hung up by
the heels above it, and even planted therein; but if they have as much
good sense as some believe, they may be aware that it is all for their
good. At the end, in full sunshine, stands a little copse of _Vanda
teres_, set as closely as their stiff branches will allow. Still we must
get on. There are bits of wood hanging here so rotten that they scarcely
hold together; faintest dots of green upon them assure the experienced
that presently they will be draped with pendant leaves, and presently
again, we hope, with blue and white and scarlet flowers of Utricularia.

From the stove opens a very long, narrow house, where cool genera are
"plumping," laid out on moss and potsherds; many of them have burst into
strong growth. Pleiones are flowering freely as they lie. This farmer's
crops come to harvest faster than he can attend to them. Things
beautiful and rare and costly are measured here by the yard--so many
feet of this piled up on the stage, so many of the other, from all
quarters of the world, waiting the leisure of these busy agriculturists.
Nor can we spare them more than a glance. The next house is filled with
Odontoglossums, planted out like "bedding stuff" in a nursery, awaiting
their turn to be potted. They make a carpet so close, so green, that
flowers are not required to charm the eye as it surveys the long
perspective. The rest are occupied just now with cargoes of imported
plants.

My pages are filled--to what poor purpose, seeing how they might have
been used for such a theme, no one could be so conscious as I.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 8: I was too sanguine. _Vanda teres_ refused to thrive.]

ORCHIDS AND HYBRIDIZING.

In the very first place, I declare that this is no scientific chapter.
It is addressed to the thousands of men and women in the realm who ten