in such matters; but I am not aware that he had any experience in growing orchids.  To start with hybridizing seems very ambitious—­too much of a short cut to fortune.  However, in less than eighteen months Mr. Kerbach found it did not answer, for reasons unexplained, and he begged to be reinstated in Mr. Sander’s service.  It is clear, indeed, that the orchid-farmer of the future, in whose success I firmly believe, will be wise to begin modestly, cultivating the species he finds in his neighbourhood.  It is not in our greenhouses alone that these plants sometimes show likes and dislikes beyond explanation.  For example, many gentlemen in Costa Rica—­a wealthy land, and comparatively civilized—­have tried to cultivate the glorious Cattleya Dowiana.  For business purposes also the attempt has been made.  But never with success.  In those tropical lands a variation of climate or circumstances, small perhaps, but such as plants that subsist mostly upon air can recognize, will be found in a very narrow circuit.  We say that Trichopilias have their home at Bogota.  As a matter of fact, however, they will not live in the immediate vicinity of that town, though the woods, fifteen miles away, are stocked with them.  The orchid-farmer will have to begin cautiously, propagating what he finds at hand, and he must not be hasty in sending his crop to market.  It is a general rule of experience that plants brought from the forest and “established” before shipment do less well than those shipped direct in good condition, though the public, naturally, is slow to admit a conclusion opposed by a priori reasoning.  The cause may be that they exhaust their strength in that first effort, and suffer more severely on the voyage.

I hear of one gentleman, however, who appears to be cultivating orchids with success.  This is Mr. Rand, dwelling on the Rio Negro, in Brazil, where he has established a plantation of Hevia Brazilienses, a new caoutchouc of the highest quality, indigenous to those parts.  Some years ago Mr. Rand wrote to Mr. Godseff, at St. Albans, begging plants of Vanda Sanderiana and other Oriental species, which were duly forwarded.  In return he despatched some pieces of a new Epidendrum, named in his honour E.  Randii, a noble flower, with brown sepals and petals, the lip crimson, betwixt two large white wings.  This and others native to the Rio Negro Mr. Rand is propagating on a large scale in shreds of bamboo, especially a white Cattleya superba which he himself discovered.  It is pleasing to add that by latest reports all the Oriental species were thriving to perfection on the other side of the Atlantic.