I50 



IRISH GARDENING. 



have long since hung up their spades and gone where 

 all good gardeners go, yet it is with pleasure we rake 

 up out of the ashes of a dead past and revivify one who 

 was a great little man with fruit trees, and fruit too. 

 His pruning practice was nil, but he was a powerful 

 pincher. After a gradual disbudding in spring he was 

 practically pinching plums, pears, apples, and everything 

 that was his the season through. We never saw the 

 pinching principle so persistently and consistently 

 practised by anyone else unless by Bracken of Roebuck 

 Castle, Dundrum, and that, perhaps, should be termed 

 disbudding. Possibly, someone who follows these 

 furbishments saw, some quarter of a century ago, 

 Bracken's superb examples of open air peach culture ; if 

 so, they can endorse this tribute to the memory of one 

 who has gone. Truly, there were giants in those days. 



C.\RI.!N.\ .■\C.\NTHIFOLI.\ — l-l.i'UI.K ill Ap I 



Notes from Glasnevin. 



Carlina acanthi folia. — This plant is more curious than 

 beautiful, but this fact may appeal to some, and on that 

 account it is worth noting. Being of the thistle 

 family it has a head o^ flowers, but in this case there is 

 only one solitary head, stemless and surrounded by 

 a rosette of leaves. This rosette measured twenty-two 

 inches across, and the leaves, which are pinnatifid, 

 deeply .serrate, and stongly spiny, are woollj' on their 

 under surface and bright green and glabrous on the 

 upper. The involucre of bracts which surround this 

 head are dark brown, narrow, stiff, and like the leaves 

 very spin)'. The inner whorl of these bracts seems to 

 take the place of the ray florets, and are a shining straw 

 colour about an inch and a half in length. The disk, 

 which stands two inches above the rosette of leaves, is 

 composed of yellow flowers, which open from the out- 

 side inwards. This head i>^ flowers closes over com- 

 pletelv during rain and at night, and opens stifl and 



strong in bright weather. This plant from the Mediter- 

 ranean region is certainly well armed, and its develop- 

 ment from the bud stage is interesting to watch. The 

 two accompanying photographs show the flower heads 

 of the plant open and closed. R. M. Pollock. 



Roses. 



By O'DoNEL Browne, M.D. 



A FEW vears ago many people held the opinion that 

 the rose did not lend itself to house and garden 

 decoration as well as many other flowers one 

 finds in the average garden, and no doubt they had 

 many points in favour of their argument, but year by 

 vear thev are losing some of these points. True, it is, 

 that until quite recently most rose 

 hybridisers strove to develop the 

 individual bloom, perfect in every 

 waj', more than the class of de- 

 corative roses we hear and see so 

 much of nowadays. But with an 

 increasing demand by new rose 

 growers and on account of the 

 newly-made classes at shows all 

 the world over for decorative 

 varieties, the decorative rose is 

 gradually pushing itself more into 

 prominence year by year. There 

 was a time, not so long ago, when 

 we found it a hard job to get six 

 bunches of decorative roses really 

 well shown at most shows, but all 

 this difficulty has, I hope, gone, 

 never to return. Yearly there is a 

 great improvement in the *' news " 

 list which are appearing in cata- 

 logues, and whereas a few years 

 ago one might count the decor- 

 ative varieties on one's fingers, 

 now there is quite a big list to 

 be had. What has been the cause 

 '"'En. of this? Some time ago the late 



Mr. Turner, of Slough, put out that 

 wonderful rose. Crimson Rambler, which originally 

 came to us through another person from Japan, and so 

 great was the hit this rose made that there and then 

 people interested in hybridising started crossing this 

 rose with others. An extra stimulus was given us all 

 when the class known as the Wichuriana class came 

 into being. True they could not boast of a very pretty 

 mother, as the ordinary white variet)- is not very showy, 

 but when she started throw'ing out off-springs we really 

 saw that but for her we should have been very badly off. 

 Now this class can boast of many beautiful varieties, 

 for what with Dorothy Perkins, Lady Gay, Jersey 

 Beauty, Minnehaha, Dorothy Deimison, and that noble 

 variety Hiawatha, we have nearly every colour imagin- 

 able. None of the above varieties made such a name 

 for itself as Dorothy Perkins, and in my opinion this 

 very fine rose is the queen of its class, for had it not 

 been for her we should not have had Lady Gay or that 

 newer sport Dorothy Dennison. These roses are, liow- 

 e\er, too much alike to their parent, hut there is a 



[C. F. Ball. 



