NO.VEMBER, 333 



good form. Mrs. Wheeler has been very uncertain, and like its 

 parent the Duke of Wellington it should be grown in poor soil and 

 disbudded sparingly, but it has been much finer in the midland counties 

 than in the south. Among the twenty varieties given last January 

 are Corsair, Chameleon, Magnet, Reginald, and Lady Raglan that we 

 shall not grow again. 



The fancy varieties sent out last spring were nearly a failure. Magician, 

 a continental production, is one of the best. Florence Nightingale is 

 good also, but uncertain. Inimitable and Enchantress have been 

 exhibited in the winning stands, and are very useful varieties. Mrs. 

 Spary has also been exhibited, but is not a first-class flower. 



THE WAR OP THE ROSES. 

 I HAD returned, after a long day among the partridges, to that which 

 every Englishman considers the natural sequence of his sport — a good 

 dinner ; my dessert was on the table ; my legs, I am ashamed to say, 

 were on that vacant chair, which some day, I trust, being a bachelor, 

 may be more worthily occupied ; and in my hand I held, dearer to me 

 than wine or walnuts, " A Catalogue of Roses, by Thomas Rivers, for 

 185()-7." The Turnips that day had strikingly resembled the Rose 

 immortalised by Cowper, and which I have always regarded as the 

 most uncomfortable present, being in a dripping state, which " Mary " 

 could possibly have offered. The clay, too, had been particularly 

 adhesive, and I remember that when I came to the " select Noisette" 

 I took a bumper of sherry, and felt that nothing but love among the 

 Roses could have kept me so long awake. Suddenly, but without 

 surprise (who ever was surprised in that land of dreams, wherein I 

 myself have met, without perturbation, Hercules, Fieschi, and Dick 

 Turpin ?) I found myself in my Rose-garden. It was broad daylight, 

 and every Rose in bloom. Kean was as glorious in October as his 

 namesake in the " Winter's Tale." General Jacqueminot, H.C., with 

 the fair, ladylike Triomphe de Bayeux by his side (why do not Rose- 

 growers cultivate more generally this distinct and elegant variety ?), 

 was glancing gloomily at his rival synonyme, who shone gloriously 

 among the Hybrid Perpetuals. Paul Ricaut bent tenderly over Coupe 

 d'Hebe, and swore that Auguste Mie was coarse and colourless in com- 

 parison. But while these summer Roses seemed only interested in 

 their own private affairs, among the autumnal bloomers there w^as 

 evidently some great topic of public import. I soon discovered that 

 the subject of discussion was the Catalogue I had just been perusing, 

 for it was strewed over the Rose-garden, so that the dwarfest might 

 read, and suspended to the tallest pillars, so that the highest standard 

 might see. The Duchess of Sutherland having been requested to 

 preside, the business of the meeting commenced. Her Grace began by 

 remarking that she never remembered, since she had been a Rose, to 

 have been agitated by more painful feelings, or to have realised more 

 sorrowfully the old adage — " No Rose without a thorn." (" Oh, oh," 



