246 THE GARDENER. [June 



bering that their colours are still the most rare of all, and that their 

 flowers are plenteous always. They are easily cultivated on the Brier, 

 the Manetti, or their own roots. 



In place of the dark crimson, which we called the Damask, Rose, 

 the amateur is advised to substitute Boule de Nanteuil, D'Aguesseau, 

 Frederic IL, General Jacqueminot (hybrid China), Grandissima, Ohl, 

 Paul Ricaut, Shakespeare, and Triomphe de Jaussens. These are noble 

 Roses, of healthful growth, fine foliage, and ample bloom. They make 

 grand heads on standards of medium height, moderately pruned, and 

 immoderately manured. It seems to me but a few summers since 

 these were our finest show varieties, the belles of our Court balls ; 

 and now, seen in the zenith of their glory upon the trees, they are not 

 to be surpassed in size or richness of colour, but they have not the 

 vellers, becoming restless in hot summer nights, and throwing off their 

 perfect symmetry of our more recent Roses, and they are but poor tra- 

 petals, as feverish dreamers their counterpane and blanket and sheet. 



Intermediate between these light and dark varieties — neither blondes 

 nor brunettes, Minnas nor Brendas — I commend for the general orna- 

 mentation of the Rosary, and from the summer Roses advertised in our 

 lists, all the Pillar Roses described at p. 150, especially Blairii 2, 

 Charles Lawson, Coupe d'Hebe, Juno, and Paul Perras. Low on 

 bushes, high on poles, or midway on the brier, these Roses are alike 

 effective, charming. To these I would add La Ville de Bruxelles, 

 having bright pink flowers of a compact form, and so complete my 

 selection of summer Roses for the general collection. 



"Wait a moment," it may be said j "do you mean to tell us that 

 such Roses as Blairii 2 and Charles Lawson are only garden Roses, and 

 not good enough for exhibition 1 " Yes, I do mean to tell you that 

 it is with these Roses as with those which we discussed before them. 

 If you could bring the British public to them, they would be rewarded 

 with the highest distinctions, but the process of conveying them to 

 the British public takes the exquisite freshness from Charles Lawson's 

 beauty, and too often produces in the junior Miss Blair a transition 

 from the blushing gracefulness of girlhood into the rubicund stoutness 

 of middle age. Again and again, charmed by their loveliness over- 

 night, I have given them a place in my boxes : as often I have been 

 obliged to confess that the impulse of the evening did not satisfy 

 the morning's reflection. On this subject I shall have more to say; 

 meanwhile let us sniff 



The Sweet-Brier ; and let no rosarian lightly esteem this simple 

 but gracious gift. " You are a magnificent swell," said a dingy little 

 brown bird, by name Philomela, to a cock-pheasant strutting and 

 crowing in the woods, " but your music is an awful failure." So may 



