£62 



JOUENAL OF HORTIOULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



[ December 23, 1876. 



especially in the form and colonr of the spike, bracts, and 

 flowers, but differs wholly in habit, in being much more 

 villous, and in the sessile or subsessile broader leaves. Cala- 

 thea leuoostachys flowered in Mr. Veitch's establishment at 

 Chelnea in October, 1874, from plants sent from Costa Kica 

 by Mr. Endres."— (Zfc/rf., (. 6205.) 



Pear — Louise Bonne d'Avranches Panachee. — One of the 

 most nseful of dessert Pears in its season (October) is the 

 Lonise Bonne of Jersey, one of the synonyms of which is 

 Louise Bonne d'Avranches. This excellent Pear is a variety 

 which originated, as Dr. Hogg tells us, in a bud-sport, and in 

 consequence of its beautifully marked fruit was distinguished 

 as the striped variety (jmnaclicc). The Striped Louise Bonne, 

 as may indeed be concluded from its origin, is in all respects 

 similar to the well-known Louise] Bonne of Jersey — or Bonne 

 Louise, as some say it should be called. It is a good grower 

 and a good bearer ; it succeeds well as a pyramid on the 

 Quince stock; it is invariably of good quality and flavour; it 

 may be had for some time in use in the autumn season ; and 

 a good sample nicely coloured forms a dish of most tempting 

 fruit for the table, and one, moreover, which will bear the test 

 of trial, seeing that its quality equals its appearance." — 

 {Florist and Pomologist, 3 s., viii., 281.) 



EOSES. 



The winter of last year here was hyperborean, the spring late, 

 and the summer cold and wet. Nothing could be finer than 

 the first bloom of Boses beginning about June 10th. After 

 the first bloom orange fungus set in ; still the plants have 

 done well ; and I finished the season December 12th. 



Orange fungus destroys healthy leaf-action; hence in time 

 the leaves dropped off, the plants had no power of breathing 

 except through the bark. Till new leaves are formed the 

 plant has no power to elaborate the sap ; hence sickness. I 

 have just cut out the debris, and cut off the secondary 

 and unripe growths, and the plants look like the masts of 

 ships. I did not send my ideas to Mr. Hinton for these 

 reasons : the summer was too wet to judge correctly of scents, 

 and I did not know the date of Eoses. Let me here say how 

 much we all owe to Mr. Hinton. 



As far as I recollect the best scented Hybrid Perpetual 

 Eoses are Lacharme's Van Houtte, the Dachess of Norfolk, 

 Baron Chaurand, Pierre Netting, Prince CamUle de Eohan, 

 Madame Knorr, Madame Clemence Joigneaux, Monsieur de 

 Montigny, Gloire de Vitry, and Baronne Prevost. Of the 

 newer Eoses sent here these are the best and good. Star of 

 Waltham the best. These are good : St. George, Pierre 

 Seletzaki, Souvenir de John Gould Veitch, Paul Neron, 

 Maxime de la Eocheterie, Etienne Levet, Claude Levet, 

 Madame Nachury ; and for garden ornamentation, Olga 

 Marix and Hortense Mignard. No new Eose has gone through 

 the trying season so well as Veitch's Duchess of Edinburgh. 

 It appears to be a China Eose, and is a valuable colour for 

 Tea Eoses, whose chief defect is that they are wanting in high 

 colours. 



I regret that the later Eoses are sadly deficient in scent. 

 My opinion is that the grandest Eoses of late are Louis Van 

 Houtte, Marquise de Castellane, Countess of Oxford, Maxime 

 de la Eocheterie, Star of Waltham, and St. George. It 

 takes several years on strong and proper stocks, and in proper 

 soils, to come to a reliable adjudication of the value of Eoses. 

 — W. F. Eadcltite, Okeford Fitzjminc. 



KEST. 



EvEBYTHifjG that is endowed with vitality must have rest. 

 The least infringement of this law is followed with a corre- 

 sponding amount of exhaustion and suffering. Mental or 

 physical work, or both combined, persisted in without a corre- 

 sponding periodical cessation and repose, sooner or later ends 

 in the premature wreck of bodily and mental powers. This 

 age of fiery competition and activity affords ample proof that 

 the law of periodical and sufficient rest cannot be ignored with 

 impunity. The body that is subject to over-much of physical 

 exertion too soon becomes a wreck of shrunken tissue and 

 physical suffering. The overworked brain softens and refuses 

 to comply with the effort of thinking, or even a worse and 

 more violent fate overtakes it. 



This same law of rest reigns as inexorably and prominently 

 — or even more so — in the vegetable kingdom. It does not 

 matter iu what zone or latitude the herb, or shrub, or tree 



exists ; it must, under some condition or other, have its season 

 of rest once in twelve months, or it will terminate its existence 

 prematurely by an effort which it was never designed to make. 

 This age of much and unseasonable forcing of flowers and 

 fruits affords ample proof of this. If a resting season, at one 

 period or other of the year, is not recognised and provided for, 

 a plant very soon exhibits unmistakeable signs of debility : and 

 if subject to conditions that keep its vital powers active for 

 any lengthened period without an intervening and a sufficient 

 resting season, it ultimately succumbs to the outrage on its 

 vital powers. 



This law is therefore one which cannot be too sacredly recog- 

 nised and acted upon by all who have to produce fruits and 

 flowers, especially at times which are termed " out of season." 

 It is a tolerably severe ordeal for any plant to be subjected to 

 artificial conditions which will cause it to produce and bring 

 to maturity a crop of either flowers or fruits at a time which 

 necessitates the performance of its functions throughout a 

 season when the etimulating powers of sunUght and heat are 

 at their lowest. To do this, after even a sufficient term of 

 resting, entails a strain upon the system. To persist in 

 attempting to accomplish such a result without a proper term 

 of rest is as certain to end in failure as that two and two make 

 four. There is not a law in the universe that can be disre- 

 garded with impunity, and this one of rest asserts its preroga- 

 tive with emphatic certainty. 



It does not matter to what part of the world we look, vege- 

 tation under natural circumstances is more or less provided 

 with a season of cessation from active growth. In this country 

 and other northern latitudes rest is induced gradually by 

 autumn, and is carried on to its fullest extent by the lower 

 winter temperature and the comparative absence of the stimu- 

 lating power of light. If we turn to the tropics we find the 

 same effect produced by the dry season, which bakes the earth 

 to a comparative crust, and dries the air to an extent we in 

 this country never experience. 



Here, then, is a power which the successful forcer of flowers 

 and fruits cannot afford to treat in any way but with the 

 utmost consideration and care. It is not necessary to ransack 

 far into the gardener's duty to find practical illustration of the 

 necessity of affording all plants under his care a sufficient 

 season of rest, not to be able to show where the disregard of 

 this point injuriously afl'ects results. Take for instance, the 

 enormous number of pot Vines which are annually grown and 

 forced to produce early Grapes — that is, Grapes in March, 

 April, and May. We do not hesitate to say that there is not 

 one out of every hundred grown that has a sufficient season 

 of rest after they have matured their season's growth ; and 

 the crops they bear are proportionally inferior. It has been 

 frequently proved in practice, that, ifja Vine has a long season 

 of rest after being well ripened, it is one of the most tractable 

 plants to excite into growth at almost any day of the year. 

 But the converse of this is true of it if it is thrust into heat 

 only a few weeks after it has shed its leaves, or, as is some- 

 times barbarously practised, they are torn off with the hand. 

 We hold it to be impossible to grow and mature Vines suffi- 

 ciently early the first season from eyes to make adequately 

 strong Vines that will ripen in time to have rest enough before 

 they are put in heat in November and December. And if this 

 condition of rest is not afforded them they require an unnatur- 

 ally high temperature to start them in time to answer the 

 purpose for which they are intended. Need it be said that 

 they must break weakly, and have a growth forced out of them 

 with a vengance, at a season when the natural impulse after 

 sufficient rest is needed more than at any other time? To 

 obviate these unfavourable conditions, and fully recognise and 

 reap the full benefit of a sufficient period of rest, it is necessary 

 to fall back on Vines struck from eyes the previous year ; to start 

 such at the turn of the season in January tmder conditions 

 where they can have as much light as possible, and be grown-on 

 without a check, and so made to thoroughly ripen their wood 

 to a nut-brown colour, and then be subject to a cool position 

 to rest for three or four months before they are placed in heat. 

 Vines grown crowded together and ripened late— perhaps de- 

 nuded of their leaves with the hand, and then started early 

 without a season of repose — are something Uke a man or beast 

 working day and night without rest or sleep ; and the results 

 cannot fail to be unsatisfactory just in proportion to the faith- 

 fulness with which natural conditions and laws are violated. 



It were easy to multiply illustrations of this matter, but the 

 case of the Vine is just a type of what is more or less applic- 

 able to everything in cultivation. If the Pine Apple is kept grow- 



