Orchids and their Romance.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8039, 29 January 1906, Page 4

Orchids and their Romance.

Orchid collecting has now become a regular industry ; and in that direction the strange flower standi alone. Orchid! The very word spelts romance. Take three actual happenings as illustrative ot the trade in them. Not long since a collector was seized with fever in Columbia, and while in a helpless condition was transported five hundred miles on the back of a camel. The same man once sent to England £IOOO worth of irehids—that is, plants valued at that sum on the assumption that they would all turn out to be more or less common varieties; vet any one of them might have fetched several hundreds of pounds. During the journey to England tbey were pitched out at some station, with the result that when they arrived they were rotten and absolutely worthless The consignee—the late Mr. Thomas Rochford—had another bit of ill-fortune. He sold a plant which had never (lowered for £3O. When he saw the bloom which it pro duced in due course he promptly offered MOO guineaß for it! And be did not put an excessive value on it either, for it changed hands afterwards for 1000 guineas. Truly, buying orchids is a hazardous lotMy. Large quantities of plants come to England which have never flowered, and whioh may not flower for some time—two or three years, may be—and yet until they do 10 nobody knows, nobody can tell, what [hey are worth. The outside value of one may be only £5, or it may be £SOO or £IOOO. A single plant has been sold by auction for £IOOO. Had it not flowered, it might have fetched less than a sovereign. On the other hand a little piece of Alexandra was knocked down for 3s Gd, and two years later it realised 80 guineas. Sometimes a piece of a valuable orchid gets among plants of a much eommoner variety, and is unwittingly sold as such. In one case a firm bought a lot of Oypriptdlum iniigne for £SO. When they bloomed—ah! a yellow Cypriprdium Sandenana, worth £75. And the fortunate growers actually sold it for that sum to the very people from whom they had purchased it for something less than half-a-crown. 'When such things asthiscanbappen.it is not surprising that there is a good deal of sheer gambling in orchids. Many people, if they told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, would have to make an admission similar to that of a certain wealthy gentleman who once picked out dozens of unknown plants from the collection of a celebrated professional grower. In reply to the nurseryman's offer to make some allowance if they did not turn out well, the purchaser remarked with a deprecatory wave of the hand, "Oh, that's all right. Some people gamble on horses, some on the Stock Exchange ; I gamble in orchids."

When Choosing a Hair Brush. • The first essential of a good hair brush is that the bristles should really be bristles, not imitations, and that they should be of a good kind. Itussian bristles are the best; they are obtained from the back of the wild boar. Russian bristles are very stiff, tapering in shape, about seven inches in length and either black or white. These are the longest and stiffest of all; only the but end is used for hair brushes, and the other end, known as the " flag," is employed for making painting and decorative brushes. The flag tappers very thinly, and ends in several sprouts, so that it makes a very soft and flexible brush. The but end of the Russian bristle may be recognised by its thickness, for no other bristle has so large a diameter. The next best variety is the Chinese, and issent from Tientsin; it is a black bristle, about five and a half inches in length, and less stiff than the Russian. It is not so durable as this latter, but in other respects it is not far behind. German bristles vary in length and quality; they are black, white, and brown, and the length ranges from six inches to a mere stump of an inch or so. The white are regarded as the best of all these German varieties, and consequently fetch the highest prices. American bristles are short, ranging from two and a half to three and a half inches; they are soft and flexible, and for that reason are not so well adapted for the manufacture of hairbrushes ; however, they are cheap, and are, therefore, largely used to mix with the stiffcr kinds. This, by-the-way, is one of the points to be noted when buying—see if all the bristles have the same stiffness. Yet another variety is that obtained from the sea cow th«s« bristles are hard and durable, and they are black in color. Imitation bristles in the shape of fibres an often used. To detect the true bristle from the imitation, and also to ascertain the quality of the real article, run your finger down the centre of the brush ; if the bristles spring back quickly into the straight, upright position, they are genuine, but if they return slowly to the original position, it will be well to examine them more closely, for this lack of resilience, or springiness, is one of the signs bj which you will recognise the fibre. See that the bristles are secured to the back of the brush by wire.

Diving fop Firewood. Between diving for pearls and diving for firewood there is a wide difference, but the two extremes may be met with in some of the Polynesian Islands. In Hawaii, for example, firewood is a rare commodity. The forests being distant from the sea, to save the labour of transporting timber to the coast, the natives gather drift wood, for which in most instances they have to dive. This is due to the fact that most of the wood is from trees washed by mountain streams into the sea, where, being phenomenally hard and heavy, it sinks to the bottom. To recover this wood the natives dash into the sea, diving under the big waves, and riding on the smaller ones at the same time feeling for wood with their feet, For a huge log or trunk aropeisprothe prize is dragged high and dry by the combined efforts of a number of halves, aided sometimes by the women and children.

On the Eve of Battle. Before Commencing what promises to be a heavy engagement, a Japanese general issues an open letter to his troops, calling upon the men to make great sacrifices if occasion should demand. The following letter was written the day before the great battle of Yalu llivct: —"With the break of day, tomorrow, will be given to you men an opportunity of meeting with the representatives of one of the strongest military powers of Europe. It will be given to you also to decide, once for all, whether an army of the Orient is able to entertain an army of the Occident on an equal footing. Moreover, to you will be given the supreme opportunityof your life in dealing a blow for the very existence of yonr homeland and for his Majesty the Emperor. ... All that the brave and loyal, all that human beings are able to do, is certainly expected of you. That is not all. Your country expects of you the accomplishment of the impossible. But if, unhappily, we are to be defeated, let it be understood that we, from the regimental chief down to the last private, are to leave our lifeless 1 bodies upon tho battlefield."