November 21, 1878. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 385 
high-pressure days men have not the time to devote to them, 
and the replies would be almost nil. Then if you take one 
point as suggested by “ONE OF THE MILLION,” you would 
require an election for each separate point, and heartily sick 
most persons would be of the affair. Elections (Rose) “come 
but once a year,” but unlike Christmas they do not always 
bring good cheer. Even once a year it occasionally brings 
snubs and growls ; what would it do if I attached so many 
points as to give each elector an idea that he was in for a com- 
petitive examination? Now to our good friend Rey. C. P. 
Peach’s idea. Weshould have three elections. First we should 
have an election for the six amateurs and then another for the 
six nurserymen, and by the time we got to the Roses both the 
selected would be tired of the whole affair, and the waste-paper 
basket or the next pipe or cigar being fired would be the end 
of the voting paper. It really is not so much, What is best to 
be done? as, How much can you get others to, assist you in 
doing ? 
For a season or two we can afford to let general exhibition 
varieties alone, and we may. as I have said, take up the matter 
in a more restricted form ; but before I pass on I would just 
remark on Class 2 of Mr. Beachey’s—*The freest bloomers 
irrespective of the quality of the blooms.” This class, he says, 
is altogether “cut out in the present election.’? Now I should 
say that Gloire de Dijon and Maréchal Niel, and probably 
Souvenir d'un Ami and with me Pierre Notting, were still in 
this class—certainly the former. Here I would remark how 
thoroughly I agree with Rey. C. P. Peach about this Rose. I 
contend it never has fair play as an exhibition variety, and, 
like everything else, if it be not cared for the success is doubt- 
ful. I heartily endorse every word he says about dear old 
Gloire—“ Glory Die John,’ as old Tommy Coles of Wellow 
Rosery used to call it, but it is a Rose that will never die how- 
ever cold the frosts of exhibition elections : it has too many 
good sound qualities. Considering how separated Rey. C. P. 
Peach and I are, and I should imagine different in soil and 
climate, it surprises me how nearly our experience seems to 
tally. Ihave already in the election cast a sort of doubt on 
Duchesse de Vallombrosa. I greatly fear she will prove to be 
a fine-weather lady, and I shall not be surprised to see her 
lower down three years hence. With Mr. Peach, too, I believe 
Marie Baumann to be the most exquisite Rose there is. On 
the plant, I prefer the pendant position ; and what a thrill of 
delight comes over one as you lift the glorious bloom and so 
unfold its beauties to the eye. Grown on the seedling Briar, 
too, it has with me plenty of vigour, throwing up shoots 3 feet 
in length and nearly half an inch in diameter. 
A different matter on which I again most thoroughly agree 
with Mr. Peach is the Manetti. I venture to say that if I had 
time to prepare the cuttings myself not one in a hundred— 
I had almost written thousand—should send up a so-called 
sucker—really a bud that has escaped the knife. Only on 
one or two occasions have I ever had a genuine sucker—that 
is a growth from the root, and that has been feeble. But then, 
on the other hand, I have had Manetti stocks from nurserymen, 
have gone over them before planting—not so easy whilst the 
stems are dirty, and overlooked buds, and then have had such 
a forest of Manetti in my bed as to make me give up the idea 
of ‘budding them altogether; and then people say, naturally 
enough, that the Manetti does throw up suckers. The fault is not 
in the Manetti, but in the knifeholder, who neglects his work 
or slurs it over. To the beginner who would bud his own it 
is one of the most useful and easiest stocks to work ; for—I 
say it advisedly—good as is the seedling Briar for growth, &c., 
it is a difficult customer to bud, and, as my experience’ goes, 
far more buds die on it from the knotty character of the stem 
than do on the Maneiti : that is at least my experience. 
Equally with Mr. Peach am I surprised that at least ten or 
fifteen (Mr. Peach says twenty) Roses are not named by every- 
one in naming forty-eight. It is a mystery to me, and I mutter 
to myself, Zot homines, or its English version of Apples and 
Onions. We do not all think alike, and some of us, I suppose, 
are woefully unfortunate and neyer get a Rose in its true cha- 
racter. As to Capitaine Christy, this has been a season for 
him, I fancy. I never saw it beautiful till this year, when I 
have cut several ; but on a small plant in our cottage hospital 
garden I saw three splendid blooms out at the same time. 
Looking at them, carrying them in my mind’s eye, and recol- 
lJeeting how a beautiful flower fixes itself on the memory, I 
should not be surprised at any person placing it in the second 
twelve, but in an unfavourable season I fear it will come 
ragged and coarse. Talking of Roses making a lasting im- 
pression, I can picture some that many years have not effaced : 
and for years in my household, whenever Roses are the topic 
before strangers as to beauty of blooms, one of my daughters 
is sure to exclaim, “Ah! I never saw such a Rose as that 
Niphetos at our Rose show.” This was some six years ago, 
and the exhibitor ““WyLp SAVAGE.” Well, yes, it mas a 
Rose ! 
Once again I entirely coincide with Mr.- Peach that ‘the 
only thing admissible in preparing blooms for exhibition is to 
remove a damaged petal.” I do not quite like even this 
admission. 
With Mr. Beachey I agree that exhibiting Roses is not the 
great pleasure in having them. I like them in the garden, in 
the house, and to send out to those who have none. This last 
is certainly my greatest delight connected with Roses. I feast 
my sight on them first, retain perhaps some of the best. One 
season I dressed a stand of eighteen daily in my hall, and 
directly after my breakfast I dispatch through the season from 
one to half a dozen baskets into the town. 
Two curious things happened to me this season—nearly all 
my dwarf plants of La France died in the course of the 
summer ; and nearly all the Mane Radys, after making good 
growth, suddenly turned yellow in foliage as they were coming 
to bloom, and, the leaves dropping, they looked like following 
suit, but they appear to have perfectly recovered. They did 
the same in a friend’s garden. 
Once again, even though it has been an exhibition election, 
yet judged by garden tests the large proportion of the seventy- 
two are not robbers: and after haying learned to love the 
exquisite form of a good exhibition Rose, the flatness of many 
of the garden varieties does not contrast favourably, and, like 
matured taste in fruit, you prefer one in perfection to numbers 
that are sour or past their prime.—J. Hinton, Warminster. 
FORCING VEGETABLES. 
RHUBARB. 
ALTHOUGH Rhubarb can hardly be considered a vegetable 
it is an article much grown in the kitchen garden, used in the 
kitchen, and forced throughout the winter season of the year. 
Where Apples are scarce Rhubarb is a good substitute for them, 
and for many purposes it is very useful. One great point in 
its favour is that it is easily forced, and those who care to do 
so may have a supply all the year round. 
When forcing is begun at this time, or before the new 
year, the best way is to lift the roots and force them out of the 
ground. After the new year the roots throw up growths 
freely without being removed. When the roots are lifted any 
long ends may be cut off, so as to get them into small compass. 
Only roots with well-matured crowns should be selected thus 
early, and the finer the previous produce has been, and the 
wider the roots have been growing apart, the better will the 
crowns be ripened and the more readily will they force. 
There are two ways of forcing Rhubarb—one in light and 
the other in darkness. Unless the heat is very strong, in the 
former case the stalks do not always grow freely, and are 
not tender, but in the dark it always grows quickly with suffi- 
cient heat and extremely tender. We have scmetimes forced 
it in the bed of a Melon pit in full light, but we prefer it in 
the dark, and generally force it in the Mushroom house re- 
ferred to in our notes on Seakale forcing. A good hotbed 
about 24 feet thick is made, and the roots are packed close to- 
gether on the top of it. The space between the roots is filled 
up with some old soil from the potting shed, and the whole is 
covered over so as just to leave the crowns above the soil. 
They are then watered with tepid water, and the hotbed and 
darkness soon do their work. We do not study to have any 
set heat at either top or bottom, only the latter should be the 
strongest, and the former will do well if it is between 60° 
and 70°. With good roots and ordinary attention the first 
dish may be gathered three weeks after the roots have been 
placed in heat. A few roots will give several dishes for some 
weeks in succession, and a few placed in heat every two or 
three weeks will keep up a constant supply. It may also be 
forced well above any boiler or fiue provided it is covered’ well 
over with soil and kept constantly moist. When such places 
are not in the dark it is well to place a box over the young 
shoots as soon as they appear. If a hotbed is made up any- 
where in the open air, the roots put in as recommended in the 
Mushroom house, covered over with a glass light or wooden 
shutter, and kept dark, will soon yield stalks plentifully. 
In forcing it in the open air in spring it is only necessary to 
