NoTember 18, 1S69. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICTJLTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



395 



Gourrcaii jVoirc— September 20th. Elongated, black, with a 

 beantifal bloom, desirable both from its i,oluar and its quality. 



Col di Siffiiora Neva.— October 7tb. Large, chocolate brown, 

 swollen at the neck ; quite a sweetmeat. 



D'Agen. — Green, with red flesh, and Rood. Though one 

 fruit ripened on the 17th of October, no other has ripened up 

 to the present time (November 10th). It is too late for general 

 cultivation. — G. S. 



AMATEUR ROSE-GROWING. 



A THOEOiTOH florist and a most successful cultivator and ex- 

 hibitor is Mr. Charles J. Perry, of Castle Bromwich, Birming- 

 ham. With the Verbena, Dahlia, and Eoee, Mr. Perry may 

 truthfully be said to excel, and he does excel. He has raised 

 some of the finest Verbenas ever sent out, and he has made 

 good contributions in the form of new Dahlias ; he is also a 

 raiser of seedling Koses, and though he has not as yet secured 

 florioultural immortality in this direction, yet as an exhibitor 

 he has won many a iisht in the modem edition of the wars of 

 the Roses. Though Mr. Perry grows a great many standard 

 Roses, yet his chief reliance is on dwarf Koaes on their own 

 roots, grown on the " pegged-down system," one by no means 

 new, but well deserving of being more generally adopted, espe- 

 cially by exhibitors. I paid Mr. Perry a visit about the middle 

 of July last, and the glorious floral display his huge bed of 

 pegged-down Roses presented, was one seldom to be witnessed. 

 It was, indeed, as if summer had come forth 



"All wreathed in a tbonsand flowers," 

 the hue of the Rose seemed to blend with the frsgranee of the 

 Violet, and shed a luscious bilm around. 



All Roses tobegr''wn on the "pegged-down system," should 

 be, and are wilh Mr. Perry, on their own roots. By following 

 the plan adopted at Castle Bromwich, it is by no means difficult 

 to have dwarf Roses on their own roots. Sarly in November 

 cuttings are taken, selecting wood of an intermediate develop- 

 ment, what Mr. Perry calls "neither too hard nor too soft," 

 and these are placed thickly in lines in any part of the garden 

 where the soil is good. They can be placed between lines of 

 dwarf-growiog plants, if snflioieut space be allowed them. A 

 good proportion of these will strike ; if only half of them, the 

 propagator has little reason to be dissatisfied. By the following 

 November the rooted plants are ready for transference to the 

 beds. Mr. Perry prepares his beds by digging into his soil, 

 which is a kind of red clayey loam, a good dressing of old frame 

 manure and marl, and he recommend?, where the ground is 

 light, a good dressing of decayed cow manure. The plants are 

 placed not less than from 2 to '2h feet apart, and in the spring 

 they are cut down to two eves. During the summer these 

 plants show shoots from 4 to 6 feet in length, which are pegged 

 down in the following February, but pegged so as not to root 

 into the ground, being brouf^ht only to within 3 or 4 inches from 

 the ground, by using strong pegs cut out of old pea sticks. The 

 shoots so pegged down are cut back to four or five eyfes, and 

 during the summer it is nothing for them to make phoots from 

 6 to 8 feet long. From this time, the pegged-down Roses may 

 be said to be fully established. During the winter, when there 

 IB not much else to do, all the old blooming wood is cut away, 

 leaving only three or four of the strongest shoots made the 

 previous summer from the roots. This is done by Christmas, 

 or soon after. Then, after the old wood is cut away, a coating 

 of manure is slightly forked in among the plants, and the 

 shoots are pegged down in the February following. 



What are the advantages of this system of pegging down ? it 

 may be asked, and in this relation Mr. Perry's experience may 

 be given in reply. He asserts — 1st, That by adopting this 

 system the flowers and foUage of the Roses are brought close 

 under the eye, as the flowering wood comes from the horizontal 

 shoots placed in this position by being pegged down. 2nd, 

 The soil round the roots of the Roses is so eilectually screened 

 from sun and wind, that it is always cool and moist, even in the 

 driest weather. 3rd, The Roses so treated bloom both earlier 

 and later than by any other mode, as the points of the rods 

 alw.iys produce their flowers before the base, and when the 

 shoot from the base of the rod has bloomed, the " stools " or 

 roots throw up strong young shoots that continue to bloom up 

 to Christmas nearly, if the weather be at all favourable. (It is 

 these young shoots that are pegged down the following Hpring. 

 when they are shortened back about a foot to get to the matured 

 wood.) 4th, Roses so treated may be said to last for ever. 

 Some of Mr. Perry's plants, those on which he mainly depends 



for a supply of blooms for the earlier exhibitions especially, are 

 ten years old, and yet are as good as when first planted, and 

 throw shoots from 6 to 8 feet in length ; in fact, they look more 

 like climbing Roses, so vigorous is their development, and these 

 shoots yield magnificent blooms in the autumn. 



Mr. Perry shows his faith in this system by growing a very 

 large number of Eoses in this way, and his reliance upon it 

 may be illustrated by stating, that up to July 17th of this year, 

 he had taken ten first prizes as an exhibitor of Roses, including 

 four silver cups, that he cnmmencsd to exhibit at Leeds on the 

 91h of June, where he won three first prizes, and all this had 

 been done mainly by flowers out from plants treated on tie 

 pegged-down system. How rapid and vigorous is the growth 

 may be shown by stating, that on July 17th I saw a shoot from 

 a stool of Louise Odier that measured 6 feet in length, while 

 others were not much behind it. 



" Be sure," says Mr. Perry, " never to plant Roses in this 

 way, except they are on their own roots." Roses on the 

 Manetti stock have been a great source of trouble to him, and 

 he has long since abandoned their use altogether for pegging- 

 down purposes. The strongest growers are always the best for 

 this purpose, such as Madame Clemence Joigneaux, John 

 Hopper, General Jacqueminot, Senateur Vaisse, Madame 

 Charles Wood, Comtesse Ceeile de Cbabrillant, Jules Margottin, 

 Monsieur Bonceune, La Reine, Emotion, Souvenir de Charles 

 Montault, Jean Goujon, Madame Julie Daran, Louise Odier, 

 La Tour de Crouy, or any moderately robust grower. Tea 

 Roses must not be employed for the purpose. Mr. Perry has 

 never known a single instance of a Tea Rose succeeding when 

 subjected to this process. In a paper contributed to the 

 "Florist and Pomologist," for August last, Mr. Perry gave the 

 outline of his process, and added, " Perhaps the cause of the 

 pegged-down system not being more general, is the length vt 

 time required to bring the plants into perfection — viz., three 

 years ; but against this drawback the cultivator must consider 

 that they never wear out, as the young wood only is each year 

 pegged down, all the old blooming shoots being cut awcy. 

 Some of my beds have been planted twelve years, and are in as 

 fine condition now as when they were three years old." 



But standard Roses are by no means neglected at Castle 

 Bromwich ; they are indispensable for the newer kinds of 

 Roses, and they are always of great value at certain seasons to 

 the exhibitor. Mr. Perry finds it best to plant the Briars 

 before budding where they are to stand permanently ; they 

 root freely and finely into the ground, and are in no danger 

 from being disturbed. This opinion was also held and acted 

 upon by that fine and successful amateur Rose cultivator, Mr. 

 J. T. Hedge, of Reed Hall, Colchester. Standard Koses, in 

 Mr. Perry's opinion, should be on stems not above from 3 to 

 4 feet in height ; he thinks that more vigour belongs to a stem 

 of this height than one taller and more exposed. I asked Mr. 

 Perry, while pleasantly discoursing about Roses, if it were pos- 

 sible to grow standards on their own roots, though, perhaps, 

 in some danger of being thought a veritable tyro for my pains. 

 He said he had never tried to obtain them so, but had essayed 

 to bud on the old wood of dwarfs, and then peg the shoots 

 down ; the buds would start into growth, but in severe weather 

 the shoot made by the bud was destroyed at the point of in- 

 sertion in the stock, perhaps, because of the incision made in it. 



In regard to the pegging-down of Roses, Mr. Perry recom- 

 mends that the strong succulent shoots likely to be affected by 

 frost should be cut away (the late growth is here referred Ic) 

 and that pegging-down should not be attempted till all danger 

 from frost has passed away, the danger being greatest at mid- 

 winter. 



With other floricultural weapons Mr. Perry wins many a 

 hard-fought fight. As an exhibitor of Fuchsias he deservedly 

 ranks high, and that not by exhibiting old plants of some three 

 or four summers, but specimens 4 feet in height, and splendidly 

 furnished, obtained from cuttings struck the previous autumn. 

 With Zonal and large-flowering Pelargoniums he is rarely 

 beaten, and as an exhibitor of Verbenas he is seldom excelled — 

 never surpassed. — Via. 



AUTUMN CROCUSES. 

 I cotiLB assist the author of the article on autumnal Crocuses 

 ('•M. H.," Acklam Hall, Middlrsbrough-on-Tees), in collecting 

 the autumnal-flowering Crocuses. I might send him Crocus 

 Kotsehyi, C. cilicicus, and 0. Boryi, autumnal flowering ; 

 C. reluchen?i?, C. reticulatus reflexus, and, perhaps, also 

 Crocus iridiflorus major, and various Colchicums. AU theoe 



