My articles brought upon me a flood of questions almost as embarrassing as flattering to a busy journalist. The burden of them was curiously like. Three ladies or gentlemen in four wrote thus: "I love orchids. I had not the least suspicion that they may be cultivated so easily and so cheaply. I am going to begin. Will you please inform me"—here diversity set in with a vengeance! From temperature to flower-pots, from the selection of species to the selection of peat, from the architecture of a greenhouse to the capabilities of window-gardening, with excursions between, my advice was solicited. I replied as best I could. It must be feared, however, that the most careful questioning and the most elaborate replies by post will not furnish that ground-work of knowledge, the ABC of the science, which is needed by a person utterly unskilled; nor will he find it readily in the hand-books. Written by men familiar with the alphabet of orchidology from their youth up, though they seem to begin at the beginning, ignorant enthusiasts who study them find woeful gaps. It is little I can do in this matter; yet, believing that the culture of these plants will be as general shortly as the culture of pelargoniums under glass—and firmly convinced that he who hastens that day is a real benefactor to his kind—I am most anxious to do what lies in my power. Considering the means by which this end may be won, it appears necessary above all to avoid boring the student. He should be led to feel how charming is the business in hand even while engaged with prosaic details; and it seems to me, after some thought, that the sketch of a grand orchid nursery will best serve our purpose for the moment. There I can show at once processes and results, passing at a step as it were from the granary into the harvest-field, from the workshop to the finished and glorious production.

"An orchid farm" is no extravagant description of the establishment at St. Albans. There alone in Europe, so far as I know, three acres of ground are occupied by orchids exclusively. It is possible that larger houses might be found—everything is possible; but such are devoted more or less to a variety of plants, and the departments are not all gathered beneath one roof. I confess, for my own part, a hatred of references. They interrupt the writer, and they distract the reader. At the place I have chosen to illustrate our theme, one has but to cross a corridor from any of the working quarters to reach the showroom. We may start upon our critical survey from the very dwelling-house. Pundits of agricultural science explore the sheds, I believe, the barns, stables, machine-rooms, and so forth, before inspecting the crops. We may follow the same course, but our road offers an unusual distraction.

It passes from the farmer's hall beneath a high glazed arch. Some thirty feet beyond, the path is stopped by a wall of tufa and stalactite which rises to the lofty roof, and compels the traveller to turn right or left. Water pours down it and falls trickling into a narrow pool beneath. Its rough front is studded with orchids from crest to base. C?logenes have lost those pendant wreaths of bloom which lately tipped the rock as with snow. But there are Cymbidiums arching long sprays of green and chocolate; thickets of Dendrobe set with flowers beyond counting—ivory and rose and purple and orange; scarlet Anthuriums: huge clumps of Phajus and evergreen Calanthe, with a score of spikes rising from their broad leaves; Cypripediums of quaint form and striking half-tones of colour; Oncidiums which droop their slender garlands a yard long, golden yellow and spotted, purple and white—a hundred tints. The crown of the rock bristles all along with Cattleyas, a dark-green glossy little wood against the sky. The Trian?s are almost over, but here and there a belated beauty pushes through, white or rosy, with a lip of crimson velvet. Mossi?s have replaced them generally, and from beds three feet in diameter their great blooms start by the score, in every shade of pink and crimson and rosy purple. There is L?lia elegans, exterminated in its native home, of such bulk and such luxuriance of growth that the islanders left forlorn might almost find consolation in regarding it here. Over all, climbing up the spandrils of the roof in full blaze of sunshine, is Vanda teres, round as a pencil both leaves and stalk, which will drape those bare iron rods presently with crimson and pink and gold.[8] The way to our farmyard is not like others. It traverses a corner of fairyland.

We find a door masked by such a rock as that faintly and vaguely pictured, which opens on a broad corridor. Through all its length, four hundred feet, it is ceilinged with baskets of Mexican orchid, as close as they will fit. Upon the left hand lie a series of glass structures; upon the right, below the level of the corridor, the workshops; at the end—why, to be frank, the end is blocked by a ponderous screen of matting just now. But this dingy barrier is significant of a work in hand which will not be the least curious nor the least charming of the strange sights here. The farmer has already a "siding" of course, for the removal of his produce; he finds it necessary to have a station of his own also for the convenience of clients. Beyond the screen at present lies an area of mud and ruin, traversed by broken walls and rows of hot-water piping swathed in felt to exclude the chill air. A few weeks since, this little wilderness was covered with glass, but the ends of the long "houses" have been cut off to make room for a structure into which visitors will step direct from the train. The platform is already finished, neat and trim; so are the vast boilers and furnaces, newly rebuilt, which would drive a cotton factory.

A busy scene that is which we survey, looking down through openings in the wall of the corridor. Here is the composing-room, where that magnificent record of orchidology in three languages, the "Reichenbachia," slowly advances from year to year. There is the printing-room, with no steam presses or labour-saving machinery, but the most skilful craftsmen to be found, the finest paper, the most deliberate and costly processes, to rival the great works of the past in illustrating modern science. These departments, however, we need not visit, nor the chambers, lower still, where mechanical offices are performed.

The "Importing Room" first demands notice. Here cases are received by fifties and hundreds, week by week, from every quarter of the orchid world, unpacked, and their contents stored until space is made for them up above. It is a long apartment, broad and low, with tables against the wall and down the middle, heaped with things which to the uninitiated seem, for the most part, dry sticks and dead bulbs. Orchids everywhere! They hang in dense bunches from the roof. They lie a foot thick upon every board, and two feet thick below. They are suspended on the walls. Men pass incessantly along the gangways, carrying a load that would fill a barrow. And all the while fresh stores are accumulating under the hands of that little group in the middle, bent and busy at cases just arrived. They belong to a lot of eighty that came in from Burmah last night—and while we look on, a boy brings a telegram announcing fifty more from Mexico, that will reach Waterloo at 2.30 p.m. Great is the wrath and great the anxiety at this news, for some one has blundered; the warning should have been despatched three hours before. Orchids must not arrive at unknown stations unless there be somebody of discretion and experience to meet them, and the next train does not leave St. Albans until 2.44 p.m. Dreadful is the sense of responsibility, alarming the suggestions of disaster, that arise from this incident.

The Burmese cases in hand just now are filled with Dendrobiums, crassinode and Wardianum, stowed in layers as close as possible, with D. Falconerii for packing material. A royal way of doing things indeed to substitute an orchid of value for shavings or moss, but mighty convenient and profitable. For that packing will be sent to the auction-rooms presently, and will be sold for no small proportion of the sum which its more delicate charge attains. We remark that the experienced persons who remove these precious sticks, layer by layer, perform their office gingerly. There is not much danger or unpleasantness in unpacking Dendrobes, compared with other genera, but ship-rats spring out occasionally and give an ugly bite; scorpions and centipedes have been known to harbour in the close roots of D. Falconerii; stinging ants are by no means improbable, nor huge spiders; while cockroaches of giant size, which should be killed, may be looked for with certainty. But men learn a habit of caution by experience of cargoes much more perilous. In those masses of Arundina bambus?folia beneath the table yonder doubtless there are centipedes lurking, perhaps even scorpions, which have escaped the first inspection. Happily, these pests are dull, half-stupefied with the cold, when discovered, and no man here has been stung, circumspect as they are; but ants arrive as alert and as vicious as in their native realm. Distinctly they are no joke. To handle a consignment of Epidendrum bicornutum demands some nerve. A very ugly species loves its hollow bulbs, which, when disturbed, shoots out with lightning swiftness and nips the arm or hand so quickly that it can seldom be avoided. But the most awkward cases to deal with are those which contain Schomburghkia tibicinis. This superb orchid is so difficult to bloom that very few will attempt it; I have seen its flower but twice. Packers strongly approve the reluctance of the public to buy, since it restricts importation. The foreman has been laid up again and again. But they find pleasing curiosities also, tropic beetles, and insects, and cocoons. Dendrobiums in especial are favoured by moths; D. Wardianum is loaded with their webs, empty as a rule. Hitherto the men have preserved no chrysalids, but at this moment they have a few, of unknown species.

The farmer gets strange bits of advice sometimes, and strange offers of assistance. Talking of insects reminds him of a letter received last week. Here it is:—

Sirs,—I have heard that you are large growers of orchids; am I right in supposing that in their growth or production you are much troubled with some insect or caterpillar which retards or hinders their arrival at maturity, and that these insects or caterpillars can be destroyed by small snakes? I have tracts of land under my occupation, and if these small snakes can be of use in your culture of orchids you might write, as I could get you some on knowing what these might be worth to you.

Yours truly
——

Thence we mount to the potting-rooms, where a dozen skilled workmen try to keep pace with the growth of the imported plants; taking up, day by day, those which thrust out roots so fast that postponement is injurious. The broad middle tables are heaped with peat and moss and leaf-mould and white sand. At counters on either side unskilled labourers are sifting and mixing, while boys come and go, laden with pots and baskets of teak-wood and crocks and charcoal. These things are piled in heaps against the walls; they are stacked on frames overhead; they fill the semi-subterranean chambers of which we get a glimpse in passing. Our farm resembles a factory in this department.

Ascending to the upper earth again, and crossing the corridor, we may visit number one of those glass-houses opposite. I cannot imagine, much more describe, how that spectacle would strike one to whom it was wholly unfamiliar. These buildings—there are twelve of them, side by side—measure one hundred and eighty feet in length, and the narrowest has thirty-two feet breadth. This which we enter is devoted to Odontoglossum crispum, with a few Masdevallias. There were twenty-two thousand pots in it the other day; several thousand have been sold, several thousand have been brought in, and the number at this moment cannot be computed. Our farmer has no time for speculative arithmetic; he deals in produce wholesale. Telegraph an order for a thousand crispums and you cause no stir in the establishment. You take it for granted that a large dealer only could propose such a transaction. But it does not follow at all. Nobody would credit, unless he had talked with one of the great farmers, on what enormous scale orchids are cultivated up and down by private persons. Our friend has a client who keeps his stock of O. crispum alone at ten thousand; but others, less methodical, may have more.

Opposite the door is a high staging, mounted by steps, with a gangway down the middle and shelves descending on either hand. Those shelves are crowded with fine plants of the glorious O. crispum, each bearing one or two spikes of flower, which trail down, interlace, arch upward. Not all are in bloom; that amazing sight may be witnessed for a month to come—for two months, with such small traces of decay as the casual visitor would not notice. So long and dense are the wreaths, so broad the flowers, that the structure seems to be festooned from top to bottom with snowy garlands. But there is more. Overhead hang rows of baskets, lessening in perspective, with pendent sprays of bloom. And broad tables which edge the walls beneath that staging display some thousands still, smaller but not less beautiful. A sight which words could not portray. I yield in despair.

The tillage of the farm is our business, and there are many points here which the amateur should note. Observe the bricks beneath your feet. They have a hollow pattern which retains the water, though your boots keep dry. Each side of the pathway lie shallow troughs, always full. Beneath that staging mentioned is a bed of leaves, interrupted by a tank here, by a group of ferns there, vividly green. Slender iron pipes run through the house from end to end, so perforated that on turning a tap they soak these beds, fill the little troughs and hollow bricks, play in all directions down below, but never touch a plant. Under such constant drenching the leaf-beds decay, throwing up those gases and vapours in which the orchid delights at home. Thus the amateur should arrange his greenhouse, so far as he may. But I would not have it understood that these elaborate contrivances are essential. If you would beat Nature, as here, making invariably such bulbs and flowers as she produces only under rare conditions, you must follow this system. But orchids are not exacting.

The house opens, at its further end, in a magnificent structure designed especially to exhibit plants of warm species in bloom. It is three hundred feet long, twenty-six wide, eighteen high—the piping laid end to end, would measure as nearly as possible one mile: we see a practical illustration of the resources of the establishment, when it is expected to furnish such a show. Here are stored the huge specimens of Cymbidium Lowianum, nine of which astounded the good people of Berlin with a display of one hundred and fifty flower spikes, all open at once. We observe at least a score as well furnished, and hundreds which a royal gardener would survey with pride. They rise one above another in a great bank, crowned and brightened by garlands of pale green and chocolate. Other Cymbidiums are here, but not the beautiful C. eburneum. Its large white flowers, erect on a short spike, not drooping like these, will be found in a cool house—smelt with delight before they are found.

Further on we have a bank of Dendrobiums, so densely clothed in bloom that the leaves are unnoticed. Lovely beyond all to my taste, if, indeed, one may make a comparison, is D. luteolum, with flowers of palest, tenderest primrose, rarely seen unhappily, for it will not reconcile itself to our treatment. Then again a bank of Cattleyas, of Vandas, of miscellaneous genera. The pathway is hedged on one side with Begonia coralina, an unimproved species too straggling of growth and too small of flower to be worth its room under ordinary conditions; but a glorious thing here, climbing to the roof, festooned at every season of the year with countless rosy sprays.

Beyond this show-house lie the small structures devoted to "hybridization," but I deal with them in another chapter. Here also are the Phal?nopsis, the very hot Vandas, Bolleas, Pescatoreas, An?ctochili, and such dainty but capricious beauties.

We enter the second of the range of greenhouses, also devoted to Odontoglossums, Masdevallias, and "cool" genera, as crowded as the last; pass down it to the corridor, and return through number three, which is occupied by Cattleyas and such. There is a lofty mass of rock in front, with a pool below, and a pleasant sound of splashing water. Many orchids of the l............