is sufficiently porous and the pots or Orchid pans have a
sufficient drainage. The rule should be to water thoroughly when
watering at all, making sure that the whole of the potting material is
moistened well, then not to give more water to that plant until the
effect of the watering is seen to be passing, the plant being still
moist but approaching dryness, when the thorough watering should be
repeated. Nothing is more misleading than to pour a little water each
day on the surface of the material in which the plant is potted. This is
often considered to be careful watering, but it results in a large
number of the plants never getting thoroughly moist at the root, while
others in a retentive compost, or where the drainage is defective,
become soddened. Such cases may arise occasionally under any conditions,
and, where a thoroughly dry plant is found at a season when it should be
moist, it is better to plunge the pot or basket in water until it is
perfectly soaked. In the case of a plant which is too wet with stagnant
moisture, it should either be repotted after the wet potting material
has been removed, or placed on a shelf to remain without water until it
is again in a proper condition to receive it.

In all cases a spouted watering-pot should be used. The rose
watering-pot and syringe are necessary things in the Orchid house, but
the use of them should be rigidly restricted to some definite work, such
as watering Orchids for the first time after repotting, sprinkling the
floors, staging, and brick walls, and other work which cannot cause
mischief. It used to be a common practice to water Orchids overhead with
a rose watering-pot, but the plants so watered made but few roots, and
the foliage was generally unsightly, owing to deposits from the water.
It is therefore best to make a rule against watering overhead in a
general way.

The syringe may be used among Dendrobiums and some other warm-house
Orchids during the height of the growing season; but it would be safer
to arrange for such work to be done by means of a sprayer and at shorter
intervals. The sprayer is a very useful and beneficial contrivance, and,
in the hands of a careful operator using clean rain-water, it affords a
valuable aid in maintaining a healthily humid condition in the
atmosphere of all the Orchid houses, especially during the heat of the
summer.

Equal in importance to the giving of sufficient water during the growing
season is the observance