Orchids are spreading fast over the world in these days, and we may expect to hear of other instances where a species has taken root in alien climes like _R. coccinea_ in Brazil. I cannot cite a parallel at present. But Mr. Sander informs me that there is a growing demand for these plants in realms which have their own native orchids. We have an example in the letter which has been already quoted.[7] Among customers who write to him direct are magnates of China and Siam, an Indian and a Javanese rajah. Orders are received--not unimportant, nor infrequent--from merchants at Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro, and smaller places, of course. It is vastly droll to hear that some of these gentlemen import species at a great expense which an intelligent coolie could gather for them in any quantity within a few furlongs of their go-down! But for the most part they demand foreigners.
The plants thus distributed will be grown in the open air; naturally they will seed; at least, we may hope so. Even _Angræcum sesquipedale_, of which I wrote in the preceding chapter, would find a moth able to impregnate it in South Brazil. Such species as recognize the conditions necessary for their existence will establish themselves. It is fairly safe to credit that in some future time, not distant, Cattleyas may flourish in the jungles of India, Dendrobiums on the Amazons, Phaloenopsis in the coast lands of Central America. 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. It is not in our greenhouses alone that these plants sometimes show likes and dislikes beyond explanation. For example, many gentlemen in Costa Rica--a wealthy land, and comparatively civilized--have tried to cultivate the glorious _Cattleya Dowiana_. For business purposes also the attempt has been made. But never with success. In those tropical lands a variation of climate or circumstances, small perhaps, but such as plants that subsist mostly upon air can recognize, will be found in a very narrow circuit. We say that Trichopilias have their home at Bogota. As a matter of fact, however, they will not live in the immediate vicinity of that town, though the woods, fifteen miles away, are stocked with them. The orchid-farmer will have to begin cautiously, propagating what he finds at hand, and he must not be hasty in sending his crop to market. It is a general rule of experience that plants brought from the forest and "established" before shipment do less well than those shipped direct in good condition, though the public, naturally, is slow to admit a conclusion opposed by _à priori_ reasoning. The cause may be that they exhaust their strength in that first effort, and suffer more severely on the voyage.