December 11, 1S73. ] 



JOOBNAL OF HOBTICULTORE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



•163 



large, rather incurved, yellow, with transverse, broad, brown 

 bauds i labellum pure white, tinged with piak. It blooms 

 during September and October, and lasts upwards of a month 

 in good order. Xitive of Brazil. 



is. Clowesii major. — In habit somewhat resembling the 

 preceding, and, hko it, a fine variety of the normal form of 

 the species. Sepals and petals flat, yellow, transversely barred 

 with deep brown ; lip purple, bordered with white ; the flowers 

 are produced in September and October, and retain their 

 beauty a long time. Native of BrazU. _,^ 



M. Reonelli pcrpurea. — This is a fine plant. Pseudobulbs 

 somewhat oblong, bearing a pair of light green leaves nearly 

 a foot in length; the scape is radical, erect, and many- 

 dowered ; sepals and petals white, tinged with rose ; lip large 

 and flat, deep purplish crimson. These most beautiful flowers 

 are produced in September and October, and if kept free from 

 damp last a month in perfection. Native of BrazU. — Exterio 

 Clede. 



KOSE STOCKS. 

 No doubt all Rose-maniacs have read Sir. Peach's remarks 

 on the Manetti stock and those of " D. D." on the Briar. My 

 own experience is dead against the Briar. It is a terrible dis- 

 appointment to deal with a plant that you wish to grow well 

 at the head, aud it will persistently prow at the root. Years 

 ago I determined never to plant another Briar, but on coming 

 to my present abode, where— at any rate some years ago — 

 most of the Roses were on the Briar, I determined to try again. 

 The result has been that last year I arrived precisely at the 

 eame conclusion, and inconsequence never put in a rod. It 

 cannot be denied, even by the greatest opponents of the Briar, 

 that some Roses do well, extraordinarily well, on this stock, 

 notably the summer Roses aud the Teas. In this union there 

 appears to be such a mutual understanding between stock and 

 scion — they have so evidently taken each other for better, for 

 worse — that both are on their very best behaviour. The bud 

 grows rapidly ; and the stock, having plenty to do in carrying 

 sap for the head, has less inclination to disport itself at the 

 root. On the other hand, the Hybrid Perpetuals as a class, if 

 we except some two dozen, do fairly the year after budding ; 

 but then transplanting comes, and a few years of miseraljile 

 sickly existence terminate the struggle. Possibly the removal 

 is somewhat to blame. The roots of the Manetti are something 

 tangible; they go hither and thither, aud the removal of a 

 woll-estabUshed Manetti is a trial. So also it may be with a 

 well-established Briar : but then so many of the attachments 

 to mother earth are not roots, and these useless, nay, injurious 

 alditions removed, how insignificant do the true roots appear ! 

 and doubtless many of the smaller are easily left in the soil. 

 Certain it is that often the Briar stock when trimmed looks a 

 Borry object ; and should it not do well for a year or two, you 

 have a hard stem offering a convenient nidus for lichens and 

 other troubles, which add neither beauty nor utility to the stock. 

 The great objection, however, to the Briar is the sucker- 

 growing. Any Rose-watcher must have remarked this irre- 

 pressible characteristic. Let alone the root, the whole stem 

 for two or three years bristles with them, and, however treated, 

 is ready to burst into vigour at the slightest provocation. Cut 

 out the bud as deeply as you please, ply your weapon ruthlessly, 

 yet what numbers start again ! Matters ore on a different 

 footing with the Manetti. Once fairly cut out the buds, and 

 in ninety-nine oases out of a hundred you have seen the last 

 of it. In this respect I entirely coincide with Mr. Peach. So 

 little disposed is the Manetti, if properly treated, to throw out 

 a shoot on the stem or the root, that if the head of a budded 

 plant be removed, and the bud by any accident get knocked 

 out, the great probability is that the whole stock will die : any 

 way, its existence will be very unlike the usual vigour of the 

 Manetti, the shoots thrown up being little larger than a knit- 

 ting needle. Now, granting that " D. D." has hit upon the 

 right plan of making the Briar stock successful, I do not see 

 that he avoids or can avoid the sucker nuisance — for this 

 reason, that the eyes of these robust-growing shoots are so 

 imperceptible near the base. I believe the Briar as a stock is 

 brought to its highest pitch of excellence by Mr. Prince's plan. 

 Like " D. D.," I have sown and watched with no results, but 

 I mean to try again ; there is some mystery in this part of the 

 performance. Judging from Mr. Prince's plants, wo have in 

 the soedUng Briar a stock surpassing, perhaps, the Manetti for 

 results of first-class blooms, but apparently to us outsiders 

 far more difficult to obtain. Until we conquer this difficulty. 



my ballot-paper, though it is illegal to show how I vote, shall 

 be crossed Manetti. Only in the single point of ease in budding 

 a standard could my experience place the Briar before my pet 

 stock, aud the fact that the wood runs so much longer in the 

 Manetti makes ample ameuds. 



I thank the Rev. C. P. Peach and also Mr. Farreu (in whom 

 I fancy I recognise one of my anonymous correspondents in 

 the general Rose election last year), for the hint about excess 

 of mauuro in planting the Manetti. I have several times been 

 disappointed in planting strong plants of Manetti Roses that 

 have never made any wood afterwards and gradually gone 

 back. I may have overdone it, and I certainly shall make a 

 note of it. 



I make my own Manetti cuttings. I cut out the eyes deeply 

 for a foot or more, so that when the following autumn the 

 rooted cuttings are moved, they are planted shallow, and have 

 a bare stem of ten or more inches above the ground. If flush 

 of buds I put two buds into each stock, one ou either side of 

 the stem, and one a little higher than the other, but as close 

 to the ground as possible. I confess my utter inability to bud 

 successfully below the surface. When in the following spring 

 the bud starts, I cut off the head of the stock, and the bare 

 stem is useful for the first fortnight or so to tie the growing 

 bud to save it from the wind ; at the same time the soil is 

 drawn up to the stem to bury the junction for an inch or more. 



This season one of my rooted Manetti cuttings gave me a 

 truss of bloom. This is the second time I liave bloomed the 

 Manetti. I had the pleasure of taking-in two or three growers 

 who had never seen it. This has happened to me only once 

 before in the last fifteen years. — Joseph Histon', JVarminster. 



I HAVE just read in last week's number of your Journal the 

 question in Mr. Baker's letter — " I have plants which are six 

 or seven years old, and this season they have made shoots from 

 the collar over S feet in height : where can you see that on the 

 Briar ? " I answer him. I will show him a Rose on the Briar, 

 certainly seventeen years old, which this year, aud has for 

 several years past, made shoots nearly as long. I have seen 

 in the south of Ireland a Cloth of Gold Rose make shoots 

 7 feet long on a Briar several years old, and I have in my 

 garden a this-year's shoot of a six-year-old Rose on a Briar 

 that I have just measured, audi find it is 13 feet long. Where 

 can you see that on a Manetti ? My own experience, there- 

 fore, leads me to say to Rose-growers, Do not give up the 

 Briar. I have too often seen the worked Rose disappear, and 

 the Manetti become a splendid bush, in the gardens of inex- 

 perienced Rose-growers, for them to be very fond of. I have a 

 Gloire de Dijon on a Briar standard at least twelve years old, 

 the head of which is some 5 feet across, and from which I am 

 obliged to cut every June straggling shoots of the year from a 

 foot long. This Rose stands, I may say, out in the open, and 

 I have cut splendid blooms from it on Christmas-eve. I and 

 others, my neighbours, find it almost impossible to get Gloire 

 de Dijon to grow here ou its own roots. — Amateur, Co. Dublin. 



EARLY PEAS. 



As the season is now at hand for sowing the very early kinds, 

 I will give you the result of my trials last season. 



Owing to the cold and wet state of the ground I delayed 

 sowing until February 11th. I then sowed ou a south burder 

 Emerald Gem, Ringleader, Alpha, and Kentish Invicta. There 

 was little or no difference in the time of their showing above 

 ground, but Emerald Gem was by three days the earliest in 

 flowering. Ringleader next. Alpha and Invicta both showing 

 together four days later — just seven days behind the fiist. 



I commenced gathering from Emerald Gem on June lltli, and 

 from Ringleader ou the 20th ; the other two exhibited about as 

 much difference as between the time of their flowering. The day 

 I sent Emerald Gem to table some gentlemen, dining with my 

 employer (without knowing it was a new Pea), remarked that 

 it was the best-flavoured early Pea they had over tasted. It is 

 very distinct in foliage, with well-filled pods. This season I 

 mean to try it against William I. and Sangster's No. 1 Improved. 

 — S. Taylor, Sion llill, Kidderminster. 



LrLiuM PURPURECM. — Mr. Stevens will offer by public auction 

 on Thursday, the 18th inst., what is said to bo a beautiful new 

 Lily from California, L. purpureum. The flowers vary in 

 colour from a purple to a purple-lilac. It is the first time this 

 Lily has been offered ; and the collector, who has found it in 



