July 29, 1875. ] 



journaij of hobticoltoee and cottage gardenek. 



87 



borne by plants of each kind. The length of the poia when 

 the beans were of the size named were of Seville 9 to 10 inches, 

 and of Early Lsng-pod 7 to 8 inches. The greatest number of 

 beans in the pods of Seville and of Early Long-pod were six, 

 and the main of the pods of both contained foar beans. The 

 colour of the beans in Seville is green, not quite so deep as in 

 Green Windsor, whilst the colour of the beans of Early Long- 

 pod is greenish white, and the u-tual mud colour when cooked. 

 The height of the haulm in Seville is 3 feet, and the plant is of 

 procumbent habit, which does not give a greater height to the 

 plants as thsy stand than 2 feet. Early Long-pod has the 

 'haulm erect, and 1 feet high ; stiff and strong. The beans in 

 Seville are about twice the size of Early Long-pod, and the 

 pods are much larger; the pods are, in fact, " whoppers." 



I am informed of a pod of Seville grown in a neighbouring 

 garden measuring 18 inches in length with the beans of full 

 size. Conclusions are inevitable. Mine are that the Seville 

 Broad Bean — from its earliness, size, and colour — merits the 

 first place in the list of the Long-pod section. — G. Abbey. 



AND YET MOKE ABOUT EOSES. 



I WONDEK whether Mr. Radclyffe has ever heard of the very 

 ■expressive Irish word " blarney," and if he has, as no doubt 

 he has, whether it has ever entered into his mind to think 

 that the gentleman who told his housekeeper that the Roses 

 at the Crystal Palace Rose Show were a joke to those at Oke- 

 5lord Fitzpaine was guilty of that hibernianism, and had been 

 working on the imagination of his faithful dependant. Per- 

 haps the gentleman himself had a little Irish blood in his 

 ■veins, and liked to lay the gentle flattery on thick while he 

 was about it. Really, if these said Roses are so fine, it is a 

 .pity that Mr. Ridclyffe does not charter a special traio. More 

 than fifteen thousand people went to see the Roses at the 

 'Crystal Palace, and all who were not ticketholders had to 

 pay 2s. Gd. each ; and it it could only be made known to 

 ihe British public that the feast of Roses there provided by 

 Messrs. Paul, Turner, Eeynes, Cranston, Prince, and Co., to 

 say nothing of the twenty to thirty best amateurs in the 

 country, was a mere nothing^only a joke — to what might be 

 seen at Okeford Fitzpaine, why surely the said British public 

 would only need the hint of a special train to come and ad- 

 mire those wonderful Roses to their heart's content. 



Well, after all Mr. Radolyffe is right. Taste in Roses is a 

 •mere matter of opinion, and perhaps the gentleman who had 

 been to the Crystal Palace Show did not admire long rows and 

 large boxes of Roses in single blooms, and preferred to see 

 them growing at their sweet will. Mr. Radolyffo'd faith in 

 nurserymen's catalogues and descriptions of Roses must be 

 very great if it has not received a severe check ere this. How 

 ■else will he account for the numbers of Roses that have come 

 to us even from the best of raisers, ticketed large, superb, tine 

 shape, splendid colour, free grower, glowing crimson, or deep 

 maroon, &c., and which are now utterly unknown to fame ;' 

 Has not even Mr. Radclyffe in years gone by recommended in 

 glowing terms Eoses that he would hardly admit into his 

 garden now ? I say this, however, with a certain degree of 

 'trepidation, as Mr. Radclyffe is hke an old soldier — he sticks 

 by his colours, and does not like to give up an old favourite. 

 "Well, whatever Mr. Paul's opinion may be of Abbe Bramerel 

 as established among old favourites, all I cin say is I never 

 saw a bloom that was not rough and coarse — coarse not from 

 size, but from unevenness of petal and raggedness of outline. 

 A boz of twelve was staged at the Crystal Palace at the last Rose 

 Show to compete among twelves of new Roses, and we fairly 

 presume that whoever exhibited them considered them good 

 specimens of their kind, but there was not one good bloom 

 among them. Of Maximo de la Rocheterie I eaunot speak 

 30 confidently ; but I know whenever I have seen it either 

 growing or exhibited, and the latter has been very rarely, I 

 'have always put a cross against it as not worth growing. Of 

 Saron Chaurand I am not much of a judge, as I have never 

 yet seen a good bloom of it and do not grow it myself; but 

 all I can say is that those blooms which 1 have seen have not 

 left a favourable impression ; it seemed to me dull in colour 

 and deficient in size and quality. 



Now let me venture to say that size has not necessarily any- 

 'tbing to do with coarseness. No one ever saw Alfred Colomb, 

 ■or Marie Baumaun, or Dupuy Jamain coarse from being too 

 Jarge. Oa the contrary, the better a Rose is intrinsically, the 

 better, that is to say, in form, in substance, in freshness of 

 oolour, in smoothness and evenness of individual petal, &c.. 



the larger and finer it is grown the more these inherently good 

 qualities come out. I may not have made my meaning very 

 clear, but what I would wish your readers to understand is that, 

 as a general rule, a large Alfred Colomb is better than a small 

 one, a large John Hopper than a small one, a large Madame 

 Vidot or a large Marie Baumann than a small one. But there 

 are Roses not intrinsically good of themselves which are not 

 improved by size — a large Paul Neron is worse than a small 

 one, a large Edouard Morren or a large M-idame Masson than 

 a small one. I enter upon this at some length, for I have 

 known a really fine stand of Roses discarded for a set of small 

 compact blooms, when the latter would never have been equal 

 in quality to the former when expanded. The smaller, as a 

 rule, the bloom of a good Rose the less is the middle of the 

 Rose filled up with petals. This to many of your readers who 

 are accustomed to judge Roses may be a mere truism ; but 

 there are some of our very best Roses which, when small and 

 bad'y grown, are only semi-double, and show a yellow eye when 

 they begin to expand. 



I cannot at all agree again with Mr. Radclyffe as to the value 

 of very dark Eoses. I should not care to multiply Jean 

 Cherpin, Pierre Notting, Prince Camille de Rohan, M. Bon- 

 cenne about my garden. A few really good dark Eoses such as 

 those named are very useful, but the most valuable colours are 

 those of the type of Alfred Colomb, Madame Victor Yerdier, 

 Duke of Wellington, and John Hopper. Some of our pink 'lOses 

 are unfortunately too thin in the petal, and do not staul wet 

 weather, as M. Noman, Centitolia rosea, and others. But, 

 then, on the other hand, dark Roses, like Empereur de Maroc, 

 M. Boncenue, and even that beautiful-coloured Rose Xavier 

 Olibo, bum in hot sunny weather, and will not even stand a 

 day's sun. 



I agree with Mr. Radclyffe in his estimate of the value of 

 Madame Vidot and Cueile de ChabriUant as model Roses, but 

 do not think the others are at all equal in form to Marie 

 Baumann, Alfred Colomb, Marie Eidy, or Charles Lefebvre. 



As to button-hole Roses, I do not see howRjses such as Mme. 

 La Bironne de Rothschild, Charles Lefebvre, Eugenie Yerdier, 

 Madame C. Joigneaux, even in the bud form, can be considered 

 as button-hole Roses, as in a very short time they would ex- 

 pand when worn. Safrano, mentioned by another correspon- 

 dent, is undoubtedly good, and so are Narcisse, La Boule d'Or, 

 and small flowers of Celine Forestier, but I think this has 

 been named before. 



Let me add a few more words with regard to the matter of 

 coarseness. What, it seems to me, we want to eliminate from 

 large Roses is unevenness, irregularity of petal, roughness of 

 outline, imperfection of shape and quartering. Some Roses 

 are seldom clear of these faults ; some, again, are beautiful in 

 their semi-expanded state, but show too much centre when 

 they open fully, as Louisa Wood or Madame C. Joigneaux ; but 

 we must be careful lest in trying to eradicate these faults we 

 revert to Roses that are too hard and full in the bud to open 

 well, or in trying to get rid of roughness have petals too thin 

 and flimsy, which will not stand either sun or wet. — C. P. P. 



MANDKE AS A SURFACE DBESSING. 



The application of manure as a surface dressing to almost 

 all kinds of crops has long been acknowledged as beneficial, 

 and its good effect upon certain plants has occasionally been 

 set forth in this Journal. So far as I am aware, however, no 

 attempt has been made to show why it is worthy of general 

 attention, to explain its action, or in other words prove that it 

 is of even greater assistance to many crops than if it were 

 mixed with the sou and buried after the usual fashion. In 

 doing this I will state at the outset that it is only during the 

 last two or three years that I have given particular attention 

 to this matter, and it may not prove uninstructive if I state 

 my reasons for doing so. 



Some two or three years ago the Rav. C. P. Peach took ex- 

 ception to some notes contributed by me on Strawberry cul- 

 ture, in which it was advised to dig-in manure among the 

 plants immediately after the crop was gathered, on the ground 

 that surface dressing was decidedly preferable. Now, although 

 I considered and maintained at the time such adverse criti- 

 cism to be faulty, not in spirit but in matter, yet it afterwards 

 repeatedly occurred to me that assertions from one whom I 

 have the strongest reasons for regarding as a decidedly safe au- 

 thority in matters horticultural oiight not lightly to be passed 

 over. Further consideration led to a determination to repeat 

 former trials, and to thoroughly sift a matter so simple and 



