254 



JODBNAL OF HOBTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



r April 3, 1866. 



lu tlio antumu o( 1H61 I put in about a hundred Manetti 

 cottings in a west border under a wall in tbe early part of 

 September, and tlicy si cmed all to do well until they began to 

 grow iu the siiriuR. auJ then all died with the exception of 

 about twenty. This autumn I put in about the same number 

 nuder a north wall, and about ten per cent, of these have rotted 

 already, owing, I am sure, to a superabundance of moisture at 

 the roots. I have also about fifty more cuttings in the west 

 border before alluded to, protected by a frame, and which so 

 far seem to bo doing well. My experience thus far goes to show 

 that it is not so easy to strike the Manetti as some people 

 represent. 



Then as to budding the Manetti. The plan that seems to 

 answer best on my soil is to plant shallow, and earth up the 

 stocks about 3 or 4 inches, much in the same way that you 

 would earth up a row of Cabbage ; and when you come to bud, 

 this ridge of soil must be opened, and the bud inserted 2 or 

 3 inches above the roots. I have found the success of budding 

 on the Manetti to depend very much upon there leing three or 

 four fine days immediately after budding. When the budding 

 has been followed by wet, especially if continuing for two or 

 three days, I have found many buds fail through the wet 

 penetrating to the junction of the hud with the stock, and so 

 causing the bud to rot. This is especially the case if, in 

 opening the trench with either trowel or spade, in order to bud 

 the stock, simply a port of basin-shaped hollow is made instead 

 of the ridge being thoroughly levelled to fully an inch below 

 where the bud is inserted. In such instance, in the case of 

 rain the tying of the bud is kept constantly wet, and the bud 

 is almost sure to rot : therefore every precaution shculd be 

 taken to preserve the bud and its 8urro"undings, for some days 

 at least after insertion, in a state of comparative drvuess, and 

 to bud when there seems to he the greatest probability of settled 

 fine weather. 



There is a point connected with this part of the question 

 opon which I should be glad of the opinion of your corre- 

 spondents before allultd to, and that is when this ridge of soil 

 should be replaced about the Manetti— in the case of early bud- 

 ding, probably in a month or six weeks' time, or as soon as 

 the bud has made about 4 inches of growth ; and in the case of 

 hght soils I should s,iy always before the winter, as I cannot 

 help thinking the soil would prove a great jirotection to the newly 

 inserted bud. In heavy soils like mine, I am inclined to think 

 that the earthing-up of the budded Manetti before spring, 

 would be likely to lead to the rotting of any buds that had not 

 formed a perfect junction with the stock. 



I have thus contributed my mite of information on this 

 subject, and shall be glad if the propagation and budding of 

 the Manetti can be thoroughly ventilated in your next two or 

 three Numbers. I have for some time been convinced that 

 when rightly nsed, and for soils for which it is adapted, it is 

 by far the best means of growing Roses. If it has a fault it 

 seems to be its excessive luxuriance, which in heavy rich soils 

 causes the Eoses budJod upon it to make too much wood ; but 

 this may, I suppose, be corrected by an annual removal or 

 root-pruning. I have had no experience a.s yet of its use in 

 growing Roses iu pots, though I have seen it recommended as 

 the best stock that can be used for that purpose. — Cocntbv 

 Cdhate. 



In reply to " Locn Ness," I beg to state that I live in Essex, 

 about twenty miles east of London, and the soil in which my 

 Boses are grown is a tolerably light one, resting on a sort of 

 gravelly clay. I have from twelve to twenty plants of all the 

 leading kinds (about 1800 plants in all), and s"o am able to form 

 a pretty good opinion of what a Rose is after having it a season 

 or two. I must confess that I did not pass judgment on King's 

 Acre so much from the blooms which mv plant bore as from 

 Uiose which the raiser of this Rose exhibited at the Crystal 

 Palace Show. I concluded that if this gentleman could "only 

 show about one good bloom in some two dozen specimens, it 

 ■was at least not at all a constant flower. 



Perhaps " Lorn Nkss" lives in a moister climate than this. 

 Last summer was a very trying one for Roses in this part of 

 Great Britain, it was so hot and dry. Should the coming 

 summer be more favourable than the" last. King's Acre may 

 prove a better flower than I at present take it to be. I sincerely 

 hope it may, for it seems to be a Rose of good constitution, and 

 IS, moreover, an English-raised flower. 



I f'^fget whether "LocbNess" mentioned Olivier Delhomme. 

 If he has not yet obtained that variety, I can confidently recom- 



mend it as a first-class flower of very fair habit. I think, tooi 

 that if he has not Madame Clcmence Joigneanx he would be 

 pleased with that tlower. — P. 



^'ERBENAS 



OUR HANGING DAY. 



Yks. we had a grand battue of new and old varieties at Shob- 

 den Lodge one day last autumn ; and if we killed a good many 

 it was not to fill our bags with them, but the dungheap, while 

 those that were spared were for the stocking of the preserves 

 again. We make, by-the-by, a great outcry about French 

 Boses, the numbers that are brought out, and the few that are 

 kept afterwards ; and yet may not our French friends cry out 

 in return and say we give them a Roland for an Oliver ? Nay, 

 do they not ? Pathetic have been the complaints that I have 

 heard from Messrs. T. & K., Mons. B. C. and others. " Ah, 

 sir ! I buy every year your new Dahlias, Geraniums, and 

 Verbenas ; but there is verj- little diflerenee from one year to 

 another, and I shall give up buying any at all. " Now, my 

 wonder is, that they buy any of these novelties, considering 

 how few are the amateurs in France. My object, however, in 

 mentioning it is to show that the complaints are not all on 

 our side. Are they groundless on theirs '/ Every year we 

 have a multitude of new Verbenas, and I am constrained to say 

 that a very large ]iroi)ortiou of them do not come up to the 

 standard they claim to have reached. Let it be borne in mind 

 that there are two distinct objects for which the Verbena is 

 raised — for bedding-purposes and for exhibition. Would it 

 not. then, be only fair that that for which a new variety is 

 useful should be fairly and distinctly stated ? for while many 

 a tedding variety would be useful in a stand, many of the pot 

 or exhibition varieties are useless for a bed. Why is it that 

 Purple King is still the best bedding Verbena out ? It is 

 neither the size of the pip nor the brilliancy of its colour, but 

 its habit of growth, the profuseuess of its bloom, and the uni- 

 formity of its colour. There is no white or coloiued eye, but 

 it presents one mass of purple to the spectator ; and while 

 other varieties more or less eyed are used, undoubtedly, for 

 bedding, yet the nearer the approach that could be made to it 

 the greater would be the acquisition for such purjioses. To 

 have the habit of Purple King is the standard which each 

 raiser claims to have reached. How many have yet done so ? 

 The lists will answer this. Instead of giring the lists of the 

 new varieties of last senson, I shall give the list which we 

 selected of those to be retained, adding a few observations on 

 some of them at the end. 



1 Admiral Mitford 20 Waverley (Banks) 40 Nobile Carolina 



2 Anuie (Cooling) 21 Madame Lelevre Franzini 



3 Chieftain 22 Faust 41 Garibaldi 



4 Purple Emperor 28 Lord Raizlan 42 Grande Ducbesse 

 6 Effie Deans 24 Brillant de Vaise 48 Fantastic 



6 Lord Leigh 25 St. Marguerite 44 Admiral Dundas 



7 Lord Clifden 26 Nemesis 45 Reine des Amazones 

 6 Foxhunter 27 Geant des Batailles 46 Merry Maid 



9 Princess of Wales 28 L'Avenir de Ballcut 47 Gloire de St. Louis 



10 Ruby 29 Madame Mattras 48 Velvet Gem 



11 Grande Boulo de SO Striata Perfecta 49 Emblem 



Neipe 81 Le Bon Nicolas 60 Glovrworm 



12 Snowflake 82 Mrs. Elphinstone 51 Princess of Wales 

 IS Mrs. Holford .SS Leon Manser 62 Lilac King 



14 DeRance 84 Quelcbi 58 Beatrice 



15 Ariosto Improved 85 Desdemona 54 Purple Queen 



16 Warrior 86 Great Eastern 66 Ne Plus Ultra 



17 Rubv King 37 Vicomte de BaUiere 56 Paul Duport 

 IS Beaiity ( Banks) 88 Purple Kin^ 57 Dr. Prony 

 I'J Urb;m 39 Marquise Pallavicini 



It will be seen that this list comprises many of the very old 

 varieties, such as No. IH, 15, '24, '25, '27, and comparatively few 

 of those of last season, 2, 49. 50, 51, 52, 54, being the chief; 

 but there are one or two things to be considered. It was a 

 very difficult season to judge of Verbenas, the intensely hot 

 weather in the earlier part of the year interfering very much 

 with their growth, and, in many instances sweeping away whole 

 beds, as was the case in the ground of my friend Mr. Banks, 

 and then they did not afterwards recover sufficiently to afford 

 a fair trial. No. 2 is decidedly a striped flower; but there 

 is a washiness about it that makes it very difficult to show 

 even in a stand, unless you can manage to keep it entirely 

 away from the scarlets, &c. 4G is a good flower, in the style 

 of Lord Raglan. 52 is a magnificent lilac flower. 6, 7, 8, are 

 so like one another, that it would be almost impossible to 

 discern the difference between them in a stand, and yet one 

 hardly likes to discard any of them. 



As I am frequently asked to give lists of Verbenas, especially 



