177 



CHAPTER XV. 



SELECTIONS. 



" What is fairer than a Rose? What is sweeter? " 



—Herbert. 



There are no two growers in the Rose world to- 

 day who would agree on any selected list of varieties. 

 We all have our fancies, our likes and our dislikes, 

 that is if anyone can be found who dislikes a Rose. 

 I have often heard an enthusiast speak disparagingly 

 of a variety, so much so that unless you realised the 

 remarks were the result of selection you would begin 

 to think he had a dual personality, the one loving a 

 Rose and fhe other hating it. Comparisons are odious 

 at all times, and never more so than in the show tent 

 when playing second fiddle to an inferior box of 

 blooms. Personally, I love all Roses so much that I 

 find it hard to make selections, not that I am afraid of 

 my selections being out-classed, but because I cannot 

 keep my lists within bounds. Ask me my favourite 

 Rose and I will say, *' La France," but I could not 

 honestly select La France in a six that had to com- 

 pete for a challenge cup. It would be like putting up 

 a featherweight champion to fight a heavyweight. But 

 as your class grows, and from six you go to eighteen 

 or twenty-four blooms, then La France finds an 

 fionoured place. 



What the grower really wants to have, is a list 

 or lists of varieties of Roses suitable for certain con- 

 ditions and arranged in order of merit. It cannot be 

 <ionc; I am sorry, good reader, but even knowing the 

 possibilities of a Rose, I should not know your gar- 

 den, and one variety might do badly where another 

 would do well. 



