Aogast 6, 1868. ] 



JOURNAL OP HOBTICOIiTUBB AND COTTAGE OARDENBB. 



»S 



tative of one of our older firm» informa me, that tlioir first 

 plantinf» of Rose Blocks, so an old Hriar-man tells bim, was a 

 lot of '2IK)0, some forty years ago ; and that from '2000 they 

 advanced in ln(il to 02,000 Briars. In l^TiO, he adds, we 

 commenced the outdoor culture of the Manetti with 4000 : this 

 year (18C7) we have Go, 000. Rapid as this increase appears, 

 the same writer goes on to say that he anticipates a time when 

 their present stock will seem liliputian in comparison with 

 that which will be required for the home and export trade. I 

 propose to revert in some future chapter to the history of this 

 development, concerning which I am favoured with some very 

 interesting facts by one who has had more to do with it than 

 any living man — my dear friend, Mr. Rivers, of Sawbridgeworth. 

 Siiffioe it to say now, that where Rosea were grown twenty 

 years ago by the dozen they are grown by the thonaand, and 

 where by the thousand now by the acre. 



Bat now comes a most important question : — Have we 

 beautiful Roses in proportion to this great multiplication of 

 Rose trees ? The printer will oblige me by selecting a brace of 

 hia biggest and blackest capitals, with which I may reply 

 emphatically, NO. It is indeed, at first sight, a marvel and 

 perplexity, that while the love of Roses is professed so generally 

 — while the demand for Rose trees has increased so extensively, 

 and the flower itself has every year disclosed some new and 

 progressive charm — Roses should be so rarely seen in their full 

 and perfect beauty. Queen Rosa, in common with other 

 potentates, has greatly enlarged her armies, but how few young 

 officers have as yet distinguished themselves fighting in the 

 wars of the Roses. Field-Marshal Rivera still commands from 

 his hill at Sawbridgeworth. The names of the generals who 

 were eminent when I first joined as Cornet — Paul, and Wood, 

 and Lane, and Francis — are still famous in our ears. Mitchell, 

 and Cranston, and Cant have long been men of renown ; and 

 though Turner and Keynes have joined more recently the 

 Boyal host, and, rushing at once to the van, achieved the first 

 honours of victory, they are well known veterans in other fields, 

 and men of war from their youth. It is the name among the 

 amateurs as with the professionals, among the volunteers aa 

 with the regular army. The old champions ride into the lists 

 and hold their own against all comers ; the new aspirants for the 

 smile of our Queen of Beauty go home, with one exception, the 

 gallant Knight of Sileby, discomfited. They may say as they 

 enter the arena, with the gladiators of old to the emperor, or, 

 in absence of an emperor, to the policeman at the entrance of 

 the exhibition, Morittiri te salutant. 



We must pass from the public Rose show to the private Rose 

 garden to see in its saddest phase the difference between what 

 la and what ought to be, the feeble harvest of good Roses from 

 the broad acres of good Rose trees. These remind us of 

 Martial's description of his works, " iS'unt bona, sunt qiuedam 

 mediocria, sunt maid plum." Collectively we can hardly say of 

 them, as an Edinburgh Reviewer (was it Sydney Smith ?) of a 

 volume of sermons, criticised in the first number of that work, 

 •• Their characteristic is decent debility." As a rule, the 

 amateur rosarian has made about aa much progress aa George 

 in. with his fiddle. After two years' tuition, the King asked 

 his tutor, Viotti, what he thought of his pupil ; " Sire," replied 

 the professor, " there are three classes of violinists ; those who 

 eannot play at all, those who play badly, and those who play 

 well. Your Majesty is now commencin() to enter upon the se- 

 cond of these classes." There is not a garden now-a-days, of 

 any preiension, which has not its collection of Roses, and yet 

 there is not one garden in twenty where the flower is realised 

 in its beauty. I have scarcely known at times whether to 

 laugh or weep, when I have been conducted with a triumphal 

 air by the proprietor to one of those dismal slaughter houses 

 which he calls hia rosery. The collection is surrounded by a 

 Jew miserable climbers, justly gibbeted on poles or bung in rusty 

 chains, and consists of lanky standards, all legs and no head, 

 after the manner of giants, or of stunted " dwarfs," admirably 

 named and ugly as Quilp ; the only sign of health and vigour 

 being the abundant growth of the Manetti stock, which has 

 smothered years ago the small baby committed to its care, but is 

 still supposed to be the child itself, and ia carefully pruned year 

 after year in expectation of a glow of beauty. There is no 

 beauty, and there never will be, for the florist ; but to the 

 entomologist what a happy peaceful home ! There can be no 

 museum in all the world so exquisitely complete in caterpillars, 

 so rich with all manner of flies. And oh I if clever " M. J. B." 

 could only see the fungus and the mildew, what leaders we might 

 have in the Gard^'ncrs' Chronicle when he had toned down his 

 joyt For me there is no solace in these charms. I stand 



sorrowful and silent, like Marius among the ruins, until my 

 companion wishes to know whether I can tell him why that 

 wretched Charles Lefobvre behaves so disgracefully in his gar- 

 den? On reflection, perhaps I can. Charles Letebvre is placed, 

 like Tityrus. " aub teijmine fityi" under the drip and shadovr 

 of a noble Beech tree, whose boughs above and roots beneath 

 effectually keep all nourishment from him. And do I know 

 why Charles Lawaon, Blairii '2, and Persian Yellow never have 

 a flower upon them '.' Simply because they are pruned always, 

 as no man with seeing eyes could prune them twice, so closely 

 that they make nothing but wood. The single standards, 

 again, are grassed up to the very IJriar, except where a circular 

 span is left for "just a few bedding-out things,"— leeches 

 draining the life blood of the Rose. It is Mrs. Hemans, I 

 think, who sings, — 



" Aroond the rod Rose, the Convolvulus climbing." 



and it sounds sweetly pretty, and would be the loveliest arrange- 

 ment possible, only that, unfortunately, it is death to the Rose — 

 death to that queen who brooks no rival near, much leas upon, 

 her throne. Look, too, at those vagabond suckers clustering 

 like Jewish money-lenders or Christian bookmakers round a 

 young nobleman, and steahng the sap away. The earth is 

 set and sodden; no spade nor hoe has been there. Aa for 

 manure, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over us, aa 

 over Mr. Richard Swiveller, when he discovered that the 

 Marchioness had passed her youthful days in ignorance of tha 

 taste of beer. We know that they have never seen it, and yet 

 they are expected to bloom profusely; and when they are 

 covered, not with Roses, but grubs, the nurseryman, or the 

 gardener, or the soil is blamed. Then there is dole in Astolat, 

 and a wailing cry over dead Adonis. " Is it not sad that we 

 cannot grow Rosea ? We have spared no trouble, no expense, 

 and we do so dote on them ! " 



The last time I heard a howl of this kind I felt myself 

 insulted as a lover of the Rose and of truth ; and instead of 

 yelping iu concert, as I was expected to do, I snarled surlily: 

 " You have taken no trouble which deserves the name ; and as 

 to expense, permit mo to observe that your fifty Rose trees cost 

 you £5, and your sealskin jacket £'20. You don't deserve 

 beautiful Roses, and you wo'n't have any until you love them 

 more." If I am accused of discourtesy to the fair sex (ahe was 

 not very fair, my reader), I can only plead that I have been far 

 more explicit with the male specimen of pseudo-rosist. " I 

 say, old fellow," remarked to mo a friend as we rode together 

 in the Row, and with a tone which, though it pretended a 

 cheery indifference, was fraught with rebuke and anger, " those 

 Rose trees which you recommended me to get turned out a 

 regular do. Cost a hatful of money— precious near a tenner, 

 if not all out— and, by .Jove, sir, our curate at the county 

 flower show came and licked them all into fits !" " Robert," 

 I responded (I was too indignant to address him Bob, as usual), 

 " I never in my life recommended a person of your profound 

 ignorance to have anything to do with Roses. You asked me 

 to give you a list of the best, and I did so reluctantly, knowmg 

 that you had neither the taste nor the energy to do them any 

 justice. Aa to the outlay, the animal on which you have 

 recklessly placed yourself, and whose hocks are a disgrace to 

 this park, cost you, I know, more than eighty guineas ; and for 

 a tithe of that sum, without further supervision or effort, yotf 

 expect a beautiful Rose garden. I rejoice to bear that the curate 

 beat you, just na that earnest boy on his nimble pony ia out- 

 trotting at this moment your expensive but tardy steed." 



Not a sonpron of sympathy can I ever feel for the disoomfitura 

 of those Rose-growers who trust in riches. They see lovely 

 blooms at the Rose shows (yea, the Duchess of Kensington said 

 that they were lovely)- selected, probably, from fifty thousand 

 trees, and the results of excellent culture, untiring vigilance 

 and care— and they say. Wo will have these Roses for our own 

 forthwith, and iu abundance. They have only to put down the 

 names, give an order, and sign a cheque, to buy as they buy 

 chairs and tables. They go home and tell their gardener 

 th;it they have ordered a most splendid collection of Rosa 

 trees, au'd that they quite expect bim next summer to have 

 the best display iu the county. From ray heart I pity that 

 gardener. They might as well have brought him Bob's hack, 

 aud told him that if he could not win tlie Derby and the St. 

 Legcr with him they really must find somebody who could. 

 Ee is not even allowed to choose a situation. The tall ones 

 are to be planted on each side of the broad walk, and the 

 little ones opposito the boudcsir window. The broad walk 

 may be aa black as a common, or, under the shade of me- 



