258 THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



EOSES IN 1875. 



BY GEOEGE GORDON. 



|OSAEIANS may fairly claim 1875 as one of their great 

 years, for there has been an abundance of blooma of the 

 most excellent quality, and a series of rose shows quite 

 unequalled as regards their extent, the spirit with 

 which the principal prizes were contested, and the 

 excellency of the flowers throughout. In no previous years have 

 we had sucli a magnificent series of exhibitious as in the season 

 through which we have just passed; and in no year have the blooms, 

 in the hands of amateurs and trade growers alike, presented a 

 greater degree of uniformity. Tet it was feared at one time that 

 the roses would be but little better than they were in 1874; the 

 weather early in the season was by no means congenial to a healthy 

 development of growth, for the weathercock pointed persistently to 

 the east, and there is nothing more trying to the tender growth of 

 the rose, or, indeed, any other tree, than a prevalency of cold 

 easterly winds — certainly there is nothing more favourable to the 

 development of the aphis and mildew, two of the most persistent 

 foes of the roses. The drought continued, and a period of brilliant 

 sunshine and great heat assisted the aphis to make such headway 

 that amateur rosarians began to be troubled about their blooms, 

 and some of my friends who have to do with light soils were quite 

 ready to give way to despair, when at last the rains welcome to all 

 classes of cultivators came. These, if they did not wash away tlie 

 blight and the mildew, helped the trees to make vigorous progress, 

 and grow out of them, as it were, and a good display of bloom was 

 hopefully looked forward to. ~Eroai the time of the blooms begin- 

 ning to open until the exhibitions were all over — and over they are 

 now — we had no excessively bright or hot weather to hasten unduly 

 the expansion of the flowers, but sufficient warmth and sunshine to 

 ensure their development, and no more. The rains were very 

 trying to the competitors at the later exhibitions, and numbers of 

 the best flowers were undoubtedly rendered unpresentable, and 

 more than one of the leading exhibitors of " seventy-twos " were 

 compelled to stage blooms that bore unmistakable evidence of 

 having been impaired by the weather. 



The two great events to rosarians this season were undoubtedly 

 the gatherings at the Alexandra Palace and the Crystal Palace. 

 The exhibitions at Birmingham, at Hereford, and at Nottingham 

 were remarkably good, but the first and the last of these formed a 

 part of a general exhibition, and lacked individuality, and the other 

 was of less extent than either. It is not necessary to make a com- 

 parison between the exhibitions held at the two palaces, for both 

 vvere remarkable for their extent and the severity of the competi- 

 tion. At the Alexandra Palace close upon five thousand trusfrs 

 were exhibited, and there were but few of the varieties suitable lor 



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