JANUARY 



IRISH GARDENING. 



R 



OSes. 



OIXiNKl. liKOWM. M.l). 



w:*^ 



one 

 picks up 



111 dri'ar\' winter 

 rose i-;i.talo_i,"'iie and 

 eaielessly oi eaiefully linns over 

 the payes one eannol help noticing-, 

 if that catalogue has come from 

 lertain fiiiiis, that after the names of 

 ceitain roses are the \vcirds "yoid 

 medal." When, as I say, one turns 

 tliese pag-es over the thoiig-ht should 

 strike a careful observer of what 

 means this desig-nation gfold medal, 

 and why so few roses are awarded 

 this coveti'd distinction. Is it for us a 

 guide, a pointer as it were, to only 

 accept these favoured few and plant 

 them, iinel look on the rest as amongst 

 ?o rans?" No, indeed, for 



the 



amongst those " also r.ms " are gfood 

 genuine racehorses— horses, I may 

 say, that have always given a g-ood 

 account of themselves when they 

 were entered for stakes, but whicli 

 were not "fit" when gold medal 

 day came louiiti. 



Roses, like horses (so I am told by 

 I'olk more versed in horseflesh than I 

 am), are not always to be had fit as 

 fiddles on a given day. Some seasons 

 the climate suits or does not suit some of our varieties, 

 just as hard ground suits some horses, and happy 

 are the rose and his raiser who, when gold medal 

 day comes round, iinds his favourite and all things 

 suitable. Vet how often these eccentricities play 

 us fiir or foul may be found when one goes through 

 a catalogue over a fire on a w^inter's night. Not 

 that we are to think these favoured few as extra 

 special, rather let us look al the others and sax- 

 hard luck. Hard luck indeed it is to both the raiser 

 and all belonging to tiiat nuisery, when perchance 

 this rose has to go out to the world without that V. C 

 medal to make room maybe for some coming and pro- 

 mising novelty which, for aught we know, will in its 

 turn have to clear for another, this time perhaps a cham- 

 pion. Nurserymen have in a great degree only them- 

 selves to blame for h)-bridizing on such a large scale, 

 \et they will tell you that out of hundreds of seedlings 

 all they look for is about two per cent, of extra good 

 vaiielies. The only inference I can see iS- that there 

 imi-.t be lots of tra-,li knocking about, and so there is. 

 Some, nay, the most of it in a good nuisery where a re- 

 putation is already made and which must be kept up, 

 has to be burnt, but before being consigned to the 

 fiames it is given another test, and that is in being 

 crossed with some other variety, for llu reason that one 

 never knows what ci-oss-breeding will do. Some 

 find their way into a catalogue and are boomed and 

 pushed and shoved up until the poor amateur is some- 

 times badly had because he has to accept a catalogue's 

 description. There are some of another class, however. 



thai should lia\e a class for themselves gcod, honest, 

 genuiiu- roses which h;nl the bad luck to be unfit and 

 not up to the mark when they were really wanted to 

 shine or fade. Some, it is true, hardly had a fan- do,, 

 but they and their raisers had to suffer. We sometimes 

 -^ee grand roses emanating fi-.>m foreign growers, 

 which were never presented for gold medals in London, 

 why I cannot say. Think you for one moment that had 

 F. K. Druschki or Lyon Rose been raised in England or 

 Ireland that they would not have been granted "golds," 

 and that worthily. Knowing that Messrs. .^lex. Dick- 

 son are P. Lainbert's agents in this country I ha\c 

 always wanted to ask the firm why they did not grow 

 Frau K. Druschki at their nursery at Ledbury or New- 

 townards, and show it as they so often do magnificently 

 ere the market had it. Then, again, to take an .American 

 \ailety, Mrs. Tlieo. Roosevelt, another flower one con- 

 stantly sees in grand fettle. Why did none think of 

 growing it over here and get it its rightly-deserved 

 rank ? There are many varieties I might name, but one 

 in particular comes to my mind as eminently suitable, 

 and that variety is Lady Ashtown. It is a ver\- open 

 secret that this grand rose was most unluck)', though 

 it was in the best rose grower's hands that everhandleil 

 a rose for the highest honours. A most suitable rose loi 

 every purpose that ever a rose was meant for, it was hard 

 and cruel luck that it was to be placed amongst the " also 

 rans." It will not do with me, not th.at the rose is not a 

 beautiful one, but I cannot give it the soil. Vet I have 

 seen it standing in the back row of IweUe vases of 

 roses, seven in a vase, flanked by Mildred Grant, that 

 giantess, and Bessie Brown, in London, and yet, insteail 

 of being dwarfed, almost dwarfing these big varieties. 

 So struck was I by these blooms that I actually brought 

 them back from London just to show folk here at home 

 what London rose shows have for us to see. Then, again, 

 Mesdames Melaine and Constant Souperls ; the two 

 cochets, Mme. Jules Gravereaux, K. A. Victoria, Mme. 

 Wagrani. Perle V^on Godesberg, Caroline Testoui, 

 Catherine Mermet, with her daughters or sports, the 

 Bride and Bridesmaid (I am writing now from memory 

 and have no catalogue in front of me, and cannot say if 

 these last three were out before the National Rose Show- 

 was started), ISIedea. and a host of other genuine good 

 doer>. ;ind lovely flowers which are in every way glorious 

 and well worthy of all the care we can give tiiem. 



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In the (jurdeiieis' Clinmiclc of December ijtii, Mr. 

 E. S. Salmon records the occurrence of "sooty blotch ' 

 disease, found during October last on apples giown in 

 the county of Kent. This disease, although common in 

 .-Vmerica, is apparently new to the British Isles. The 

 blotches represent the blackish spawn of a fungus (.i 

 species of Leptothyrium) that grows upon the surface ol 

 the skin of apples and pears, and is attached to it so 

 closely that it can only be lubbed off with difliculty. Un- 

 like scab, the soot\- spot can spread from fruit to fruit in 

 store, and is therefore a troublesome pest in the fruit 

 room. This and another fungal disease known as '• fly- 

 speck " occurs frequently on .Vmerican imported apples. 

 Growers in this country should keep a sharp look out 

 for either of these pests on stored apples or pears. 



