HoToh 23, 1876. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



227 



I shall never forget the week last year that the Alexandra 

 Palace and Crystal Palace Rase Shows were held. The Alex- 

 andra was on the Thursday and Friday, and the Crystal 

 Palace the following diy. Oq the Tuesday in the next week 

 was Hereford, and on the Thursday Birmingham. My friend 

 Mr. Baker, the king of tho amateurs, attended all the shows, 

 and I think it is worth recording how he did it. How his 

 strength held out is quite another question. He has, by tho 

 way, the advantage of night mail trains. He left Exeter on 

 the Wednesday night for the Alexandra Palace by the 10.12 

 mail, having staged his blooms since sundown that evening, 

 arrived at the Palace about 7 a a. next day, staged in every 

 class, judged the nurserymen, took first prizes in every class 

 B&vo one; went back to Exeter that night by the limited mail, 

 landed there at 3 a m. Friday, went home, and found his man 

 had begun to stage for the Crystal Palace, set to work without 

 delay, and staged what he wanted ; then left Exeter that night 

 by the mail, arrived at the Crystal Palace about 8, staged, and 

 took the first prize in every class ; went back to Exeter that 

 □ight by the mail, aud at last went to bed about 4 o'clock on 

 Sunday morning, which was the first time he had been between 

 the sheets since Tuesday night. But in spite of all this, he 

 assures me he went to church in the afternoon. He is church- 

 warden, I believe, and so made a grand effort. On Monday he 

 was up at 3 am. to stage for Hereford. He and I travelled to 

 Hereford together that night. Again, next day he staged 

 and took tho first prize in every class (I coming in here a good 

 second), judged the nurserymen, had lunch, and set off again 

 to Exeter to stage for Birmingham; left Exeter next day by 

 the day mail and arrived at Birmingham on the same night, 

 and staged next day in every class ; returned the same day to 

 Exeter, having had eight days' ceaseless toil and not one un- 

 broken night's rest, and at the end of it all he was as fresh 

 as a daisy and his digestion as good as ever. And not till 

 Birmingham was over did one of his magnificent plants droop 

 its head and say, " Enough. I am done, although you are not." 

 Which had the best constitution, the Roses owned by him or his 

 matchless self I cannot determine ; but they are both equally 

 wonderful and the object of my lifelong admiration. 



" Ah ! " I think I hear someone grunt, " Ah ! Roses forced hke 

 his were will be fit for nothing another year. They will have 

 been growing on all through the winter, and when the time 

 cornea when they ought to make a start they will have no more 

 life in them than a telegraph post or a tin kettle. Wait and 

 see what he does this year before you commend his system of 

 growth." Ah, yes, wait and see, and also listen, my would-bs 

 objector. No doubt you are right ; they would have gone on 

 growing, but he stopped that little game. He took up every 

 plant, pruned the roots, put in fresh manure, changed in 

 manyjcases the position, and then put them back again, and 

 we shall see what those Roses will do. 



One remark more about his plants, and it is one which I 

 consider most important. They are all dwarfs, and, with a 

 few exceptions, all worked on the Manetti. Now his soil is a 

 strong red marl ; it is none of your strong, fluffy, sandy " blow- 

 away," but good, honest, moderately stiff loam — good soil for 

 Briars as well as Manetti, and some Briar Roses grown in 

 similar soil at Mr. Robert Veitoh's nursery will show that this 

 is BO. Yet, with the exception of a few seedling Briars Mr. 

 Baker has nothing but Manetti Roses. Then what follow ? 

 Why, first three cheers for the Manetti — there is no stock 

 like it; it possesses every good quality and no bad one ; it is 

 par excellence the stock for Roses. And secondly, standard 

 Roses are a mistake. " What !" someone again objects," you 

 condemn standard Roses because one man has been so suc- 

 cessful with the Manetti!" Not so; I think that is an in- 

 stance of the value of dwarfs on the Manetti ; but my objection 

 to the standards is on far graver grounds. I suppose no one 

 ever gave them a better or fairer trial than I have done. I 

 took a field, the soil was poor I allow, but virgin, and I dressed 

 it very highly indeed ; I am ashamed to put down what I 

 spent in manure, but it was at the rate of 200 tons to the 

 acre. I had two men collecting Briars all the early winter, 

 and put in ten thousand. I gave a penny for each Briar, and 

 in due course budded them, and then I thought no one could 

 come near me last year. And what was the result? I never 

 did so badly at the shows in my life. The only first prize I 

 won in the year was for Teas at the Alexandra. I never took 

 a prize at all at the Crystal Palaos, nor at Nottingham, 

 Huntingdon, and other places. The I3riar8 would not grow, 

 or bloom, or do anything but throw up suckers; and when I 

 came to move them this winter, out of my ten thoasand Briars 



planted in 1873 and budded in 1874, how many plants do 

 you think I thought worth removing ? Just 1800. Now if that 

 was not a fair trial for standards I do not know what can be. 



" When will you be in bloom?" asked Mr. George Paul of 

 me at our Exeter Show, where I could not stage a box of 

 bloom to save my life and credit. " Well, I don't know — not 

 before Birmingham, I am afraid, for my Roses are all maiden 

 Briars." " Maiden Briars ! best of all, then." They may be 

 in some soils, but not in my case. Every wind of heaven 

 blew those wretched plants to and fro. I spent £'20 in stakes 

 aud £2 in roffa grass to tie them. I had a man doing nothing 

 but weed, and I was ever tie, tie, tie, but to no purpose. 

 Hundreds were blown clean out at the bud, hundreds died be- 

 cause they had no roots worth naming, and the place where 

 they grew is now a mausoleum and a wilderness, and a Rose 

 Cave of Adullam too. Such is my experience of standard 

 Roses ; but to bring the matter to a practical issue I will name 

 the objections to them in order. 



1. They are so expensive. (1) To buy them you must give 

 fifty per cent, at least more than for dwarfs ; (2) they require 

 stakes aud tar twine, and they demand much more labour and 

 time than dwarfs. If you bud them you have to watch the 

 growing bud aud be for ever tjing it np. 



2. They do not live half or a quarter of the time that dwarfs 

 do. Their existence is artificial, and they have constantly to 

 wage warfare with their adopted parent. The stock shows 

 fight in every possible way. It throws out suckers from its 

 roots and offshoots (or " robbers," as my children call them) 

 all down their stems. They give the bud no peace while in its 

 childhood, and then when it is old enough to take care of itself 

 then the unnatural parent dies. 



3. They are more subject to attacks from insects than dwarfs. 

 The Rose grub hides itself in the stock just where the knife 

 mark is, aud comes out with the spring to leave a nasty little 

 greasy grub in the young leaf, which if not discovered ruins 

 the bud. 



4. They are ngly, ungraceful, like mopsticks, and when not 

 in flower or foliage are positively unsightly on your lawn. 



5. The stocks are most difficult to procure. 



I had to make presents to the farmers whose hedges were 

 ravaged by my Briar-men, had to rig out the latter with new 

 clothes when they had done; for, as they pathetically said, 

 " they were scarcely decent, and really the police be that 

 sharp," &a. Then, too, the stakes are of great moment, even 

 if you live like I do in a " woody countrie." " Look around you," 

 said the architect to my predecessor who built this sweet nest, 

 but who complained that there were no grates in the fireplaces, 

 " Look around you, and you see nothing but wood. This is a 

 woody countrie." Aud the result was that for the sake of 

 appearances he had to sit always with the door open, and 

 every high wind used to send the burning wood to make friends 

 with his pictures. 



The upshot of all this is that any one who reads this journal 

 and who stands in need of advice like I do — e.g., in respect of 

 pruning and tending Peach and Pear trees — is advised to have 

 nothing to do with standard Roses unless the soil consists of 

 the very strongest clay. Let the Dog Rose bloom in the 

 hedges, follow its " sweet will " undisturbed ; let it caress the 

 wild Cherry and protect the Osmunda regalis, and when the 

 rains of spring and summer drench it with moisture, let it 

 drop reviving dew into the cup of the thirsty ^Primrose aud 

 rejoice the heart of the ever-green Moss. Do not injure it 

 with your keen-edged iron ; do not spend the mighty strength 

 that Nature and no end of harsh cider has given you in claw- 

 ing up from its free home the Briar, the wild Rose that Nature 

 claims. Leave it unhurt so that it may do its work and add 

 its quota to that result which in England may always be seen 

 — "all things bright and beautiful;" and keep, my friends, 

 my rivals, my enemies even (if I have any), keep to the 

 Manetti. — John B. M. Camm. 



EINGER APPLE. 

 A coKEESPONDENT has Written to ask information abont an 

 Apple called Ringer. The fruit is large, 3 inches wide and 

 2A high, roundish and flattened, obtusely angular on the sides 

 and round the eye. Skin yellow, with tinges and broken 

 stripes of pale crimson here and there ; and the whole surface 

 is sprinkled with thin patches of pale brown russet. Eye 

 open with erect pointed segments set in a pretty deep and 

 angular basin. Stalk three-quarters to an inch long, stent, 

 deeply inserted in a deep Nonpareil-like cavity. Flesh yellow, 



