New-York tribune., 1903-01-04
ORCHIDS OF GREAT VALUE.
TINY ONE WORTH $10OOO-MRs. WILSON'S
FINE COLLECTION-CURIOSI
OF GROWTH

The flower pot was like a toy. The moss in it
would not have made teaspoonfu1 Out of the
moss two tiny leaves, each less than half
ineh long, peeped. They were variegated leaves;
their right halves green and their left
halves white. Pot. earth, leaves and ALL this
tlant would have slipped easily into mans
Aaistcoat pocket.
And yet $4,000 had been offered for It. It
lid not weigh ounce. There was nothing to
1t but two tiny leaves upon stem less than an
inch long Yet it was worth $1,000.
1t orchid in the collection of Mrs.
George B. Wilson, of Philadelphia. Mrs. VIII
sons orchids are said to be the finest in Amer
ca; some say the finest in the world. The
little plant was cross between Cattleya aurea
ard Cattleya labiata- It two years old,
Ind it would be five years more before it would
begin to bloom. But it was the only orchid in
,he world with leaves half green and half white,
and therefore Sanders the English collector,
seeing it in November, said:
Il will give you $4,000 for it."
But Mrs. Wilson's gardener replied
I'VE buy all we can, but we never SELL
Mrs. Wilson lives at Forty-third and Walnut
Its., Philadelphia. Ten years ago she bought the
prchids of Erastus Corning, of New-York-
40 900 plants, which Mr.. Corning had been forty
years in gathering. She engaged for her gar
dener, Alphonse Pericat who had been head
gardener at the orchid farm of Baron Alphonse
de Rothschild Of Paris and she sent off, with
rowing commission, Henri Barrault. skilled
orchid hunter. For the last ten years, thanks
J. the daring and the industry of Barrault and
thanks to the patient art Of Pericat her collec-
don has been growing greatly. Il is practically
collection that represents fifty years of work
1t numbers 10000 plants, over 1000 Of which
unique, with duplicates nowhere in the
world, and it is worth Gas Erastus Corning spent
100000 on it, as Mrs. Wilson has spent
S25O,OOO On it. and Pericat has propagated
from it 1000 hybrids) close upon
100000. 1t is said to be the best collection in
America, and Sanders says it is in many re-
spects the best collection in the world.
This costly collection is kept in eleven green
houses. They are not large greenhouses; com
bined they would not make a bigger
than Madison Square Garden concert hall;
and they vary in atmosphere amazingly. One
is warm and damp that it is hardly pos
slble to breathe its heavy air; another is
cold, with fresh, pure air that ex-
hilarates like wine; for some orchids-the |
Colombian odonto glossum for instance-grow
on mountain tops, and only thrive in dry, cold |
weather; others-like the Cyprpedium family
grow in swamps, in the heart of the Asiatic |
jungles, and must have the moist and heavy |
jungle heat; and each greenhouse must simulate |
the habitat of the aerial flowers it contains |
Hence the difference in the Wilson greenhouses |
with their automatic thermometers that regulate |
temperatures of themselves, and with their in |
genious devices that cool or mosten the air.
Orchids are aerial They have nothing to do |
with the earth. AS other flowers live upon
loan. these flowers live upon oxygen. In the |
wild state they grow upon trees: domestica ted |
they grow in perforated pots filled with loose |
moss. The only attention they require is bath |
two three times week
One of the Wilson hothouses is devoted to the |
white cattleyas which are the rarest orchids
of South America A glimpse of this house
shows clearly why the orchid has been so long
regarded devilish and unholy flower The |