94 Rhodora [APRIL 
sufficient to establish his reputation as a grower and breeder of roses. 
The fact that he received the first gold medal ever awarded for a 
rose, together with his long list of first prizes and constant success 
as a gardener, is well known and that he was the part owner of a 
collection of roses and other plants that could not be duplicated, 
except under exceptional circumstances, will be readily admitted. 
At the time of the destruction of the engine house, about the mid- 
dle of May, rgor, Mr. Walsh had a large number of stock plants on 
hand, besides a climbing rambler, a hybrid tea and several other new 
garden roses, which gave great promise, and were conceded by all 
who had seen them to be of unusual beauty and superior worth. 
When the burning of the rubbish from the engine house began, it 
was the source of considerable annoyance to those living in the 
vicinity, but it was not until the third and last day of the fire, when 
the tar roof was being consumed, that anything seemed decidedly 
wrong in the rose garden. At this time, the leaves began to fall 
from a number of plants, while those which remained, together with 
parts of the stems, became discolored and marked in various ways. 
So severe was this external evidence of damage, that for months after- 
wards the bushes which were able to survive showed large black and 
gray scars, much as though they had been actually scorched by fire. 
One can readily imagine the alarm with which the owners of this 
wonderful garden viewed the destruction of their plants and the 
immediate efforts made to discover the cause of such havoc. For 
this it did not seem necessary to seek far. ‘The amount of dense 
smoke and vapor that arose from the burning of the tar roofing was, 
of course, tremendous and when this cloud was carried by the pre- 
vailing wind directly upon the rose garden, settling there like some 
heavy black fog, it could hardly be supposed to be beneficial. 
As has been said, the immediate effect of this unusual environment 
was to cause most of the leaves to drop off and to scar and mark the 
young and tender stems so as practically to ruin them for exhibition 
or other such purposes. But this proved to be the smallest part of 
theloss. Asin any other case of poisoning from gases, the outward 
evidences were but slight as compared with the internal and actual 
damage done to the plants. Some were killed outright, while many 
of those which survived were so weakened that they were of no further 
use for propagation. Large areas of growing tissue died in most of 
the shoots exposed to the action of the smoke and this together with 
