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.
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.