Those who wish well
to their kind would like to hasten that day.
Mr. Burbidge suggested at the Orchid Conference that gentlemen who have
plantations in a country suitable should establish a "farm," or rather
a market-garden, and grow the precious things for exportation. It is an
excellent idea, and when tea, coffee, sugar-cane, all the regular crops
of the East and West Indies, are so depreciated by competition, one
would think that some planters might adopt it. Perhaps some have; it is
too early yet for results. Upon inquiry I hear of a case, but it is not
encouraging. One of Mr. Sander's collectors, marrying when on service in
the United States of Colombia, resolved to follow Mr. Burbidge's advice.
He set up his "farm" and began "hybridizing" freely. No man living is
better qualified as a collector, for the hero of this little tale is Mr.
Kerbach, a name familiar among those who take interest 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.
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