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1242 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



Mabch 14, 1907. 



and methods to give incentive to those 

 who would know her better. 



Have an Ideal. 



I should say, by all means have an 

 ideal in mind when attempting the pro- 

 duction of a new variety of rose through 

 the medium of cross-fertilization; ii; 

 fact, the ideal is persistently forced upon 

 the working florist by the very short- 

 comings of his everyday favorites. The 

 amateur may please his fancy and de- 

 light himself with the odd and curious 

 results of haphazard work, and there 

 is much pure pleasure to be derived from 

 it; bpt the florist, with all his love and 

 reverence for the beautiful in nature, 

 has a sterner purpose in view. The rose 

 has descended to commercialism; the 

 rose grower must raise it to a pinnacle 

 of perfection, where it can dominate its 

 special line of commerce, without apol- 

 ogy for any weakness. And it must be 

 confessed at the present time that the 

 usefulness and the profit of nearly every 

 variety of commercial rose is greatly 

 impaired by some serious drawback to 

 its reliability. To eradicate Hhese faults 

 in thJB parent is impossible ; ' to produce 

 a seedling that shall retain the good 

 points of the parent with the weakness 



varieties, and only after a good lapse 

 of time hiave results been forthcoming. 

 The purpose in view was first to secure 

 a \igorous constitution in the progeny; 

 that must always be first. Seedlings 

 showing exceptional vigor have again 

 been bred with. Liberty, Richmond, 

 American Beauty, ••Quffen of Edgely and 

 several of the best "♦hybrid perpetuals. 

 My aim has been in this particular line 

 of work to secure a red rose that would 

 flower freely under glass in winter. Fur- 

 thering this idea of improving the red 

 varieties, pollen was taken from Amer- 

 ican Beauty and ovetv 300 crosses were 

 successfully made laSt year, 1906, and 

 these latest seedlings *are now nice little 

 plants growing vigorously in their lit- 

 tle pots. My hope in thus using Amer- 

 ican Beauty pollen is to secure, if pos- 

 sible, a long-stemmed, free-blooming win- 

 ter-forcing variety. A previous effort in 

 this line has given us a rose superior 

 in color and size to American Beauty, 

 with the additional advantage of produc- 

 ing flowers as freely as Richmond or 

 Bridesmaid. - *< . 



Quite a separate line of crossing has 

 been to improve upon the size of Rosa- 

 lind Orr English while retaining its gen- 

 eral color scheme. With this in view, 



Pan of Red Tulips Dressed in Green Crepe Paper. 



eliminated is well worth working for. 

 This, then, forms an ideal; definiteness 

 of purpose in any line of activity is es- 

 sential to results, and quite as important 

 : 1 the ideal is the working plan which 

 must be formulated to attain the end 

 in view. 



Examples of an Ideal. 



Some years ago I began working on 

 red roses, hoping to secure something 

 better than Meteor, Teplitz and Litta, 

 all fine in their way, though stubborn 

 material in the hands of the rose forcer. 

 My initial work was begun with these . 



hundreds of crosses were made with 

 pollen taken from Richmond, Queen of 

 , Edgely, American Beauty and Paul Ney- 

 ron during the season of 1905. The 

 progeny from these have mostly flpw- 

 eied, with a result that some thirty have 

 been retained for a second year's trial. 

 Two out of the thirty selected are of 

 unusual promise. One of these is 

 American Beauty x Rosalind Orr English 

 and is specially notable for its stiff, long 

 stem and large size. The other cross is 

 Richmond x Rosalind Orr English, which 

 is intermediate in color between its two 

 parents, with the additional merit of 



possessing double the number of petals 

 that either of its parents possess. The 

 above two instances are cited to show 

 concentrated effort on a given line in a 

 multiplicity of crosses. I give the above 

 in detail to illustrate my conviction of 

 having an ideal in mind when working 

 for a given end. Perhaps some day we 

 will find a means to the end desired by 

 simply making one direct cross. 



I do not know to a certainty, yet I 

 believe that Joseph Pernet, of Lyons^ 

 has followed out a similar certain line 

 in his raising of new varieties. I judge 

 this by the similarity in growth, foliage 

 and the general build of the flowers in 

 his originations. Take Pres. Carnot and 

 Antoine Rivoire; note their general char- 

 acteristics and I think it is easy to de- 

 tect a similarity of lineage running on 

 down through his Madam Rivary, Le 

 Progress, Joseph Hill, Mme. Jenny Gille- 

 mot, Mme. Philip Rivoire, Mme. Melanie 

 Soupert and Baronne de Sinety, and 

 three of his very latest introductions, 

 Mrs. Aaron Ward, Mme. de Luze and 

 Renee Wilmart Urban show the same 

 general characteristics. It would be in- 

 teresting to know if M. Pernet had been 

 following out Mendel's theory in his 

 breeding of roses. Not all his produc- 

 tions are allied to the varieties men- 

 tioned above, for his Etoile de France, 

 Marquise Litta, Soliel d'Or and Laurent 

 Carle are quite distinct from the type 

 cited above. 



Transmission of Visor. 



If the law of interbreeding be cor- 

 rect, gathering in only pollen from 

 closely related varieties, then the law of 

 heredity as applied to the animal king- 

 dom would not hold good in the vege- 

 table family. My suggestion would be 

 to follow both lines of work, interbreed- 

 ing and promiscuous breeding, if I may 

 thus put it, but always have in mind the 

 design of a given improvement. 



Of laje my one thought has been to 

 select the most vigorous grower for the 

 mother plant, for without health, vigor 

 and a good constitution the Anest new 

 rose is a failure. I am thoroughly con- 

 vinced by observation and experience 

 that the mother plant has the most to 

 do in giving health, vitality and consti- 

 tution to the offspring. This being the 

 case, we can see at a glance how impor- 

 tant it is to select only the very strong- 

 est among the everblooming varieties to 

 serve as the female parent. We should 

 select the pollen from those varieties 

 which have pronounced qualities in the 

 way of color, stem, length of bud and 

 fragrance. If these qualities are present 

 in the male you may hope that they will 

 have an influence upon your crosses. 



With the increased vigor possessed by 

 many of the later productions in tea and 

 hybrid tea roses, such as Betty, Phari- 

 saer, Killarney, Kate Moulton, and 

 others of like vigor, it need not be many 

 years before a race bred from such 

 parents will give greatly increased vigor 

 over present existing varieties, and with 

 this increased strength of growth great 

 good will come to the grower. 



The infusion of hybrid perpetual blood 

 will also have a marked tendency to in- 

 crease the vigor and growth of seedling 

 roses, and, by using the everbloomers 

 for the seed bearer, freedom of bloom 

 will in large measure be preserved. It 

 ought not to be many years until the 

 present non-flowering hybrid perpetual 

 roses are superseded by a race equally as 

 virile but which will give continuous 



