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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTDEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October SO, 1873. 



of a like nature. Why I should especially say to Mr. Camm, 

 " Do not be in a hurry to discard the Manetti for Briars," is, if 

 he wishes his beds to last, they have far more chance of doing 

 so on the Manetti than on the Briar ; and, except in cold stiff 

 clay soils, I should never advise Eoses on the Briar to be 

 planted for permanent effect, except it were those worked on 

 the seedling Briar, when a Rose has a chance of making its 

 own roots, and there is less tendency to root-suckers from the 

 Briar stock. 



This brings me to the remark that I made at Darlington, 

 and that is that Roses have fallen into disrepute in many 

 gardens, and many people say, " Oh ! it is no use my attempt- 

 ing to grow Eoses here," merely because they have never 

 grown anything but standards. The rage for standards has 

 militated more than anything else to hinder the spread of 

 Eose-growing ; end my reasons for stating this are these : All 

 standards are, as a rule, dug from hedgerows and plantations 

 by ordinary labourers, who care more about getting a good 

 straight stem than a good root. They are cut out of a hedge 

 in any way they can get at them, and then laid by in bundles 

 at home, often not even put in by the heels, but merely thrown 

 under a shed with a little straw over them till the man has 

 obtained a sufficient number to take them to a nurseryman. 

 The nurseryman plants them in rows, and perhaps out of 

 every hundred from twenty-five to thirty per cent, die, and 

 of the remainder only thirty per cent, have sufficient root to 

 bear transplanting. Well, all that live and push their buds 

 are in due course budded and sent out from the nurseries. If 

 they get into a good soil which suits the Briar they have a 

 chance — thirty per cent, of them — to make good plants and to 

 grow well and bloom freely under certain circumstances ; but 

 if, as is too often the case, the soil is a light loam, or sandy 

 or peaty, then the Briar stock after a year or two gradually 

 deteriorates. 



It is the nature of all Eoses to renovate themselves by shoots 

 pushed from the base. Look at a strong Dog Eose growing 

 in a hedge ; you will see each year strong shoots sent from the 

 base, or else root-suckers, each sucker stronger than the one 

 sent out the year previous. Now, this nature of a Eose is 

 entirely set on one side by the practice of growing standards 

 with bushy symmetrical heads. Every strong shoot is pinched- 

 in to prevent its getting the better of its neighbour. In my early 

 days as a boy I have often heard gardeners say, " Oh ! I must cut 

 back or cut out that shoot, as it is a rogue ;" although if the 

 rogue had been left to itself it would have given the best 

 bloom on the tree next year when properly pruned in the 

 spring. Against this constant piuching-in of the head the 

 Briar is as constantly remonstrating by pushing out suckers 

 from the roots — not from eyes in the stock itself, as in the case 

 of the Manetti, but robbers that mine their way under ground, 

 and appear from 2 to 3 feet, and often more, away from the 

 stem, and which as constantly have to be cut off. Another 

 evil with regard to standards, too, is the price of them. Owing 

 to the difficulty of obtaining good stems and so great a per- 

 centage dying, those persons who have followed the fashion of 

 planting tall standards are chary about the number they plant, 

 and others are prevented altogether. 



I have not quite finished this catalogue of delinquencies yet. 

 The last I bring forward against the Briar Eose, and not the 

 least, is, that except, perhaps, for three or four weeks when in 

 full flower, they are not pretty objects, and in winter decidedly 

 ugly objects. The queen of flowers should not be grown as a mop 

 on the top of a straight stem tied to a thick stick, and owing to 

 the whole of the head being exposed they are liable to severe 

 injury from frost — in fact, in the winter o£ 1860-Gl I lost out 

 of about one hundred standards every Eose but two. This 

 alone in the north of England would decide me against the 

 use of standards ; but I am also convinced that in light loamy 

 soils on gravelly or sandy subsoils no Roses on the Briar 

 either as dwarfs or standards will last. About five years ago 

 I made a new Eose garden, and planted 250 to 270 Eoses in 

 it. In the centre of the two beds I had dwarfs on Briars. On 

 examining the other day, there is only one of the original ones 

 living, and that one dragging on a struggling existence which will 

 be ended by the spade this year. The rest are on the Manetti 

 stock, and have gone on pushing strong shoots from the ground, 

 many of them making 4 to 7 feet every year. I have, of 

 course, lost a few weakly ones amongst them, but not many — 

 certainly not more than half the number of those planted on 

 the Briar, though there were at least sixteen on the Manetti to 

 one on the Briar to start with. 

 I do not wish to say one word against the quaUty of the 



bloom to be picked from maiden Briars on soils which suit 

 them, but I do say that, with exceptional cases, the blooms 

 from transplanted cut-back Briars are very poor after the first 

 year or two, except in the hands of experienced gardeners who 

 know their requirements ; but for all ordinary garden soils 

 and for permanent planting in a rosery, give me plants on the 

 Manetti. My reasons are these : Any ordinary garden soil 

 may be made to suit the Manetti stock, and even where soil 

 is as bad as Mr. Camm's, beds may be made-up to grow them 

 by judicious mixing. Then by planting the collar of the Rose 

 — i.e., the union of the scion with the stock — low enough (and 

 this is an essential point to be attended to), the Eose emits 

 roots of its own, and continues to push up strong shoots from 

 the base, according to the nature of Eoses, and by judicious 

 pruning, by removing all wood more than two years old, a 

 strong, healthy, vigorous growth is kept up. Instead, too, of 

 having a head open to the mercy of every frost, a slight cover- 

 ing of litter or winter's genial covering of snow protects the 

 base, and even if killed down to the ground the Eoses push up 

 again from the ground as strong as ever. I have frequently 

 had my plants cut down level with the ground, and yet they 

 made plants 3 or 4 feet high the same year. There is no bother, 

 again, about root-suckers. I know many, from not planting 

 deeply enough, and from not carefully taking the eyes out of 

 the stocks before planting, have Manetti shoots from the 

 stem ; but I have never yet seen on the Manetti a root-sucker 

 properly so called, nor do I on an average have more than 

 one Manetti shoot on every fifty plants ; whereas I have 

 counted as many as fifteen to twenty on a single Briar stock. 



I think, in the same way, that much of the discrepancy we 

 hear of with regard to the action of the Quince on the Pear,, 

 or the Paradise, Doucin, or Burr Knott on the Apple, arises 

 not so much from the influence of the stock on the fruit 8.S 

 the influence of the soil on the stock. For instance, the 

 Quince and the Paradise are both surface-rooters ; if they get 

 on to strong loamy soil with a large admixture of clay they 

 have no chance of maldng fine surface fibres. On some cal- 

 careous thin soils, again, they burn, whereas in deep light 

 loam of a sandy nature they will grow Apple and Pear trees- 

 with as large tops almost as Crab stocks or Pear stocks. In 

 one place, again. Apples and Pears have to be constantly lifted 

 or root-pruned to induce frnitfulness ; in another such treat- 

 ment is either perfectly unnecessary or would be wanton de- 

 struction. In many a case, too, a tree is said to canker on a 

 particular stock, whereas in another soil or even in another 

 aspect it would succeed ; in fact I see far too great a tendency 

 to generalise from individual instances. 



Another great advantage of the Manetti stock, and one 

 which I have already partly alluded to, is that there is no 

 hideous bare stem, and you can plant the Eoses in beds, and 

 peg them down or treat them as pillars, and with proper care 

 the quality of the Eoses will be as good after four or five years'' 

 planting as the first year. 



When gardeners have a strong clam or unctuous marly soil, 

 or even a tenacious loam, to contend with, I would give persons 

 about to plant Manetti the same advice that Punch did those 

 about to marry — Don't ! It is, as a rule, labour lost. There 

 dwarf Eoses on the Briar would succeed ; but there especially 

 would I recommend Eoses budded on the seedling Briar, such 

 as those with which Mr. Prince, of Oxford, hasbeensosuccesj- 

 ful ; as, instead of having been rudely torn from hedges with 

 their roots cut, these seedling Eoses budded when two years 

 from the seed, have strong healthy roots uninjured, and the 

 union between the scion and stock is perfectly formed. More- 

 over, the Eoses on these seedling stocks may be planted as 

 if on their own roots with no unsightly stems to contend 

 against. 



I have spun a somewhat long yarn on Mr. Camm's text, but 

 I am very glad to find so many amateurs are beginning to 

 adhere more strongly to the Manetti stock, as everything 

 which adds to the permanency of Eose-beds helps to give an 

 additional interest to Eose-growing. I have now had the 

 experience of eighteen years with regard to the Manetti, and 

 I have still left on that stock Eoses which were killed down to 

 the ground in the fearful winter of 18C0, but which recovered 

 and have borne transplanting and are aUve now. — C. P. Peach. 



ELECTION OF KOSES. 

 Mr. Hin'ton has obtained the votes of about fifteen well- 

 known Eose-cnltivators on the merits of the new Eoses — that 

 is, those brought out in the three years 1870-1-2. We intend 



