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.
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