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.