THE 



;~socc c-c<?<x>cccoco->»jo 



July, 1859. 



^OSES were, perhaps, never in greater 

 perfection than in this present snmmer of 

 1859. Since the frost of May, the weather 

 has been most propitious for the production 

 of a splendid bloom ; certainly the cultivators, 

 connoisseurs, and admii'crs of the Queen of 

 Flowers never saw their favourite in so many 

 enchanting forms, or in such individual ex- 

 cellence, as at the second National Rose Show, 

 held at Hanover Square Eooms, on the 23rd of 

 June last. With his customary assiduity and 

 enthusiasm, the Eev. S. R. Hole had planned the 

 preliminaries with tact and forethought, and the com- 

 mittee had co-operated with spirit and unity, and the ex- 

 hibitors poured in the rosy wealth of twenty English counties, to remind 

 the world of London that the growth of towns has not yet utterly ex- 

 tinguished the country. The exhibition of last year lacked one feature 

 which would have crowned it with completeness — a feature which, to use 

 Lord John Russell's phrase, was "conspicuous by its absence." Invariably 

 the flowers shown in the various classes merited the highest praise that can 

 be bestowed on growers, who have not only to use theii- best exertions to 

 show every variety at its best, but to use judgment also in the selection of 

 the varieties best adapted for exhibition. But such a fete is incomplete 

 as regards the amount of instruction it is capable of affording unless plants 

 are shown as well as flowers. Who that remembers Chiswick in its best 

 days will ever forget the beds of roses, consisting of pot-plants, plunged 

 and trimmed up with turf and gravel, bearing aloft their bosses of bloom 

 in every successive shade of colour, from the purity of snow to the 

 deepening fire of a vermilion sunset ? This year plants were shown in pro- 

 fusion, and we had at the National Rose Show the means of comparing the 

 relative merits of Mr. Francis's manettis with Mr. Paul's briars, and of 

 seeing the whole of that remarkable foliage, of which a few tempting bits 



VOL. II. jS^O. VII. n 



