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JOURNAL OF HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENEE. 



[ October 24, 1865. 



after the second year, except in one or two stands ; and I per- 

 fectly remember that Charles Lefebvre himself did not take 

 his position until he had been over here two years. 



But it is as to the naming of the new Eoses that " Rosa 

 Akglica " waxes strong ; and not contented with the attempt 

 " sparyerc amhiciuas voces" comes ont at once with the charge, 

 direct and clear, that the reverends whose names have been 

 appended to French Eoses have received a douceur of new 

 Eoses, and in consequence thereof have given a lift to them — 

 that is, praised what they have never seen. Now, Mr. Ead- 

 clyffe and myself are the only two Protestant clergymen whose 

 names are to be found appended to French Eoses by French 

 raisers, Mr. Hole's having been given by Mr. Standish. 

 Whether we are capable of doing such a thing, or whether we 

 have done it, the readers of The Journal of Hobticultuke 

 can determine. I have never, and I do not think Mr. Ead- 

 clyffe has ever, praised a Eose that we have not seen, and I 

 do not think we need be ashamed of those which bear our 

 names. I know that amongst Bourbons, to which class the 

 Eose named after me belongs, there is not one to equal it in 

 colour ; and, as I have said, Eushton Eadclyffe is a fine Eose 

 of the light crimson class. Of the Eoses' I saw last year I 

 named this and Marechal Niel as the only two of Eugene 

 Verdier's I had seen that promised to be good, and the latter 

 I pronounced magnificent. Has it not proved so ? I also 

 covjcctiirccJ that Duchesse de Caylus, Duke of Wellington, and 

 Duchesse de Medina Cceli would prove good, and I am pretty 

 sure that they will do so. So amongst the Eoses of tlus year 

 which I have seen, I am fain to stake my reputation as knowing 

 something about Eoses on the two fine flowers Margaret Dom- 

 brain and Alfred Colomb ; and let this be observed, that if we 

 do not say anything about a new Eose the first year, the French 

 gi-owers care very little wliat we say afterwards. The first 

 year is their harvest ; after that our English raisers can equal 

 if not exceed them. 



As td) nurserymen, "Rosa Anglica " says plainly, "Any 

 English florist giving an order to a French Eose-raiser to the 

 amount of flve hundred francs may have a Eose dedicated to 

 him — that is, named after him : it is thus we have so many 

 French Eoses with English uame.s attached to them." Imagine 

 this — the silly vanity of which he supposes oiu' English florists 

 guilty ! I find the names of James Veitch, John Cranston, 

 John Keynes, William Bull, William Paul, George Paul, and 

 others attached to French Eoses. Which of you, gentlemen, 

 ever gave five hundred or five francs to have a P^jse named 

 after you ? Not one, I venture to say. Is this silly charge a 

 new one ? Is it only of late years that the practice has become 

 reproachable ? Yet after all, what's in a name ? " That which 

 ■we call a Eose would smell as sweet by any other name;" and 

 whatever names French raisers choose to give to the produc- 

 tions of their gardens, be good-natured, and do not quarrel as to 

 the nomenclatiu'e. 



Had " Eosa Anglica " put forward his views without these 

 insinuations, I should has-e more agreed with him, and do in 

 fact agree on the main point — viz., that we are flooded with 

 new Roses, and nnist protest against them. Already I see 

 M. Eugene Verdier announces twelve. It is impossible that 

 they can be all good. One of them I know is ; two others I 

 saw, but cannot say that I considered them first-rate, and pro- 

 bably none of them, save the one I have mentioned, will prove 

 so. We shall have probably a hundred Eoses : if six of them 

 prove valuable we shall do well. Eose-growers must judge by 

 past experience, and be chary of ordering the Roses of those 

 grow-ers whose productions have proved to them a loss. — 

 D., Deal. 



CLOTH OF GOLD GERANIUM— SOIL FOR 



GERANIUMS. 

 I am pleased to hear of the success of Mr. McLellan with 

 Cloth of Gold Geranium. I only regi-et that he did not send 

 his communication earlier, for I would then, if agreeable, have 

 gent some of my plants to him, with a portion of the soil in 

 which they were growing, as he thinks there must be some- 

 thing materiaDy wrong therewith. The soil which I prefer for 

 the whole class is fine, soft, mellow loam, out 4 inches deep 

 with the turf, packed away turf inwards for twelve months or 

 more ; peat of a kind that contains a considerable quantity of 

 fine white sand ; aiul some leaf mould and good mauure used 

 rather sparingly than otherwise. If Mr. McLellan, or any of 

 your numerous correspondents, can recommend something 

 better I shall feel obliged for the information. 



la my former communication I did not refer solely to my 

 •wn plants, for I had seen the variety imder different circum- 

 stances and in various situations doing very inihtlerently in- 

 deed. I should here like to tender my thanks to " R. P." for 

 informing us of his failure. For my own part I have done 

 with Cloth of Gold as a bedder, since we have varieties that do 

 better and answer the same purpose. From what I have at 

 present seen of Miss Watson I am imable to discover any im- 

 provement on Mrs. Pollock. " R. F." has referred to the 

 variety ; perhaps he has had a better opportunity of judging 

 of its qualities, and may therefore be able to give us a little 

 iuformsition on the subject. — F. Flition. 



THE RIPENING OF PEACHES IN ORCHARD- 

 HOUSES. 



Before answering the remarks Mr. Rivers has made on my 

 liaper on " The Forms of our Fruit-houses," I will say a few 

 words upon my intention in writing it. 



I have now for some years given my leisure hom-s to the 

 study of horticulture, and during this time I have continually 

 been impressed with the 1 ttle change the introduction of hot 

 water has made in the construction of our fruit-houses, and 

 more and more convinced that the time is fast coming when 

 a garden will no longer be looked upon as a luxury and an ex- 

 pense, but treated from the same point of view as a model 

 farm. I had, therefore, two desires — to learn the opinion of the 

 gardening world on the possibility of getting what I called cubic 

 measure out of a house, and also to quei-y if the present mode 

 of training Vines and Peach trees is not wasteful of light, heat, 

 and space. 



The only answer I have seen is from " Vitis," and he wrote 

 under a false impression, which he would see by the second half 

 of my paper. I hope he will next year tell us how his Vines 

 have succeeded. I do not think we differ on the question of 

 l)runing, I did not enter upon it ; but as he does, I may say, 

 that it he studies Mr. Brehaut's book he will find an espalier 

 will require no more attention than a bush tree. When I saw 

 my ]>aper in your Journal, I thought it read too much as if I 

 was laying down the law, I only wanted it to read as if it came 

 from one who believed what he wrote. Mr. Rivers does not 

 charge me with ambiguity, and if he can prove that I am 

 wrong, I wiU freely acknowledge that my letter was not written 

 in vain, but that I at least have gained in knowledge ; and let 

 me ask as a matter of courtesy, that he will treat me as one who 

 can comprehend small things, and that after he has called my 

 figures " fictions of fancy, Spanish air-castles," and said " no 

 siich houses and no such treatment exist," he will take as 

 much pains to prove his statement as I have done. 



He begins with what he calls my " scientific dialogue." I 

 have often heard of the science of gardening, and though I did 

 not use the term, I think if Mr. Rivers had given us the reasons 

 why orchard-houses answer in the places he mentions in the 

 north, his letter would have merited the term semi-scientific, 

 for he would have had to give us the geology and meteorology 

 of each place ; but then he would have proved them the ex- 

 ception, not the rule. Mr. Rivers must not think I am au 

 enemy to orchard-houses, if I lived in his climate I would 

 build one at once. But what is an orchard-house? Mine 

 would not have a bush tree in it, and I should call it one, and 

 yet the lean-to houses at HaUiugbury Place are claimed by Mr. 

 Rivers as orchard-houses, though the description as given in 

 his book reads to me like that of a Peach-house. Then I come 

 to the question of temperatures, and what is shade ? If I enter 

 a house and ask the gardener what temperature he has, wiU he 

 think I mean in the shadiest corner ? I think not, for if a 

 thermometer is to be of any use it is fairly to represent the 

 temperature of the house for the information of those who 

 have charge of it, and that is the sort of indication I gave ; and 

 I am ready again to state that the Peach house and vinery in 

 my garden, and of which I sent you sections, were during the hot 

 weather at the end of last month, with the ventilation on, at 

 100° in the day, and from 40' to 45° at night. I may also say 

 that T am at a loss to understand how Mr. Elvers could get a 

 reading of only 80° in one of his large houses, and out of doors 

 69° at 2 i-.M., "on one of the bright warm days we had last 

 month," when I read in the Times, that the thermometer iu 

 the open air was as high as 81.3° in the shade in Cumberland. 



I will now refer to the high temperatures Mr. Elvers con- 

 siders so absurd, and I regret very much he does not give us 

 the highest he has observed in his houses. I tliink I have a 



