236 



JOURNAL OF HOETIGULTUEB AND COTTAGE GAEDENEK. 



[ September 28, 1871. 



Your correspondent, "CoKNtiEiA," gives a list of his Teas, 

 and asks for a list of the best twelve. I congratalate him if 

 he has succeeded with Monplaiser. I have tried it in every 

 form, and I think it a regular imposter, and so has every Eose- 

 grower with whom I have "chatted" this year; it will not 

 open, and not one flower in two thousand would be fit to put 

 in a stand at any country show. My advice is, work Marechal 

 Niel on every plant of it you may have. Adrienne Christophle 

 is most uncertain, it so rarely opens a perfect flower, but yet is, 

 undoubtedly, a fine Eose ; it will not, however, do on the 

 Briar, it is not strong enough; my best are on the Manetti 

 stock. I now give my list of twelve, with the stocks on which 

 I grow them. D stands for Dog Eose, M for Manetti budded 

 low, the junction being 2 inches underground : — 



Sonvenir d'un Ami, rose. D or M. 

 Comte de Paris, pale flesh. M. 

 David Pradel, rose and lavender. 



M. 

 Louise de Savoie, lemon. D. 

 Madame Bravy, tt kite, rose centre. 



DorM. 

 Enbens, wMte and rose. D or M. 



Sonvenir d'Elise, wliite and blnsh. 



D or M. The best Tea. 

 President, pale rose and salmon. 



M. 

 Niphetos, pnre vrhite. D or M. 

 Madame Willermoz. DorM. 

 Moiret, fawn. D or M. 

 1 Sonvenir de David, crimson. M. 



To these I must add- 



Madame Margottin 

 Madame Charles 

 Madame Falcot 



(yellow). D 

 or M. 



La Sylphide, cream, centre fawn. 



M. 

 Bongere, rosy bronze. D. 



These I have tried some time and can thoroughly recom- 

 mend. There are several new varieties which promise to be 

 great acquisitions, but only having had them one season I 

 cannot as yet speak positively — viz., Catherine Mermet, Belle 

 Lyonnaise, Tour Bertrand, Jean Pernet, and Unique. 



The following cannot be grown out of doors — viz., Elise 

 Sauvage, La Boule d'Or, Smith's Yellow, Marie Sisley, and 

 Eeine du Portugal. They make, however, fine pot plants. 



Tea Eoses on the Manetti stock should be turned out of pots 

 in May, well mulched, and freely dosed with liquid manure 

 (I use guano water), mulched again in autumn, and not pruned 

 till March. — Stiff Soil, Somerset. 



HORTICULTUKAL PARIS IN 1871.— No. 2. 



THE SCEUEBS. 



If one is surprised at the manner in which the Parisians 

 have resumed their wonted life when they now look round on 

 the blackened ruins of their public buildings in the interior of 

 their city, one is still more surprised when he gets outside and 

 sees the awful destruction that the civil war has occasioned. 

 None who have ever visited Paris can forget the wonderful 

 changes wrought under the Empire in the hne of boulevards 

 and roads that debouche from the Arc de Triomphe, especially 

 the charming Avenue de I'lmpfiratrice with its beautiful villas, 

 neatly laid-out gardens, and handsome surroundings. Now on 

 all this the " fell dogs of war " have been let loose, and, alas ! 

 all is changed. Houses are knocked about, trees destroyed, 

 gardens rooted up, lamp-posts broken, while in other places 

 the desolation is complete. Go down to the Porte Maillot, or 

 rather where the Porte Maillot was, and you see one mass of 

 ruins. Of the railway station at Auteuil not a stone remains. 

 If one wants to see what the modern implements of war can do, 

 let him turn aside into the Avenue de Eeuil, and go into the 

 garden of what was No. 60 in the Avenue. There is literally 

 not one stone left upon another ; there is not a tree in the 

 garden that has not been cut ofi by the " obus " from Valerien ; 

 there is not one in which you cannot see balls or pieces of 

 shell, while whole piles of them are to be found in difierent 

 parts : yet this was evidently a pretty villa with a weU-tended 

 garden. What did the proprietor think when he returned to 

 his favourite residence ? and what would you think, my good 

 reader, if your pretty villa had shared a similar fate ? It was 

 a melancholy sight, and yet withal it spake something of the 

 character of the owner that, amidst all this ruin, his men were 

 at work clearing away, and had planted out a bed or two of 

 Pelargoniums, which were shedding a trifle of gaiety on the 

 desolate scene. 



How well known to all visitors to Paris was the Bois de Bou- 

 logne, that dear resort of all who could afford a fiacre or boast a 

 trap ! When the Prussians surrounded the city all that portion 

 of the Bois which was close to the enciente was cut down by 

 order of General Trochu, and now this space is all bare ; in 

 fact, one can see that the fortifications were a mistake, or, at 

 least, if they were to be of any use, that neither trees should 



have been planted nor houses built near to them. As you drive 

 on further into the wood the destruction is not so great as one 

 might have imagined it would have been ; and I dare say after 

 some time, provided there be no more revolutions, it may 

 resume somewhat of its former appearance. Driving along 

 fiom the Porte Maillot to Point de Jour, Passy, &Q., on every 

 side you see traces of the frightful civil war that disgraced Paris 

 in the months of March, April, and May, when the city was 

 ruled by the Commune, and when wretches gathered out of 

 every nation, the forcaU of the galleys and the gaol birds of 

 France, held high revel in the palaces and buildings of the City 

 of the Seine. Had the Prussians committed one-tenth part of 

 this destruction they would have been regarded as worse than 

 Goths and Vandals — they are regarded by some Frenchmen 

 now as pretty nearly as bad. But all this has been the work 

 of Frenchmen ; and it is enough to make one feel sad at heart 

 to think that all this was done in the nineteenth century, in the 

 very capital of what is called civilisation. 



But you want to know, perhaps, how individuals have suf- 

 fered by it. My friend Mr. Douglas wrote a paper in the Joui'nal 

 two weeks ago, in his usual practical style, on the Phlox, and 

 gave the names of some good and select varieties. Now, there 

 is no one to whom we are more indebted for the improvement 

 of this flower, or so much so, as to poor Lierval, who had for 

 many years given great attention to it. No sadder history 

 than his is to be told in connection with the war. Some years 

 ago he left his former comparatively mean establishment for a 

 new one, on which he had expended the savings of many years. 

 He had built a new dwelling-house, a fine range of iron green- 

 houses, and some wooden ones also ; he had gathered together 

 a fine collection of stove and greenhouse plants. Palms, Ferns, 

 &(!. When the siege commenced he removed there with one 

 son about fourteen. In the beginning of December he was 

 seized with small pox, and that terrible disease acting on a 

 feeble body, rendered still more so by anxiety and insnflioiency 

 of nourishing food, carried him off. He did not die of starva- 

 tion as it was reported. His son-in-law then undertook the 

 care of the place ; but, alas ! what could he do ? The severest 

 winter known for many years in France came on apace ; fuel 

 became scarce, none could be had for heating greenhouses and 

 stoves, while people were perishing from cold, and so Lierval's 

 collection was doomed. An eiiort was made to get some of the 

 plants into the dwelling-house and so save them, but it was 

 fruitless. Then came the shells from Talerien, and now blank 

 and utter destruction marks the place ; the garden is overgrown 

 with weeds ; the houses filled with pots, in which may be seen 

 the skeletons of the plants that last autumn were in the fulness 

 of beauty ; and the ruin is complete. Of all his fine collection 

 but one plant remains. His houses are greatly injured, his 

 family have no means to re-establish the business, and unless 

 they can obtain some compensation from the Government it 

 will be hopeless. In a garden near at hand the collection ol 

 Phloxes has been saved. Some fine varieties wiU probably be 

 sent out this autumn or next spring, for, being hardy, they did 

 not require the care and attention that the house-plants did ; and 

 lovers of this beautiful fiower may help the widow by ordering 

 collections of these novelties, among which I saw some really 

 fine things. I would gladly transmit such orders. 



One cannot look round on such destruction as this in- 

 flicted on men who hated war and loved peace, without feel- 

 ing strongly the terrible wickedness of such a wanton and 

 unprovoked war as this last. I shall in another paper detail 

 what I saw at the more southern portion of the suburbs, at 

 Bourg-Ia-Eeine, &c. Truly in the language of the Hebrew pro- 

 phet, " they have laid the pleasant land desolate." — D., Deal. 



RESULTS OF THIS YEAR'S SPRING AND 

 SUMMER. 



It would, I think, be interesting if some of your readers 

 were to give us their experiences during this season. It has 

 been so unprecedentedly vicious, that especial value must attach 

 to all plants that have done well through it. We ought to have 

 notes from England, Ireland, and Scotland, as it would be in- 

 teresting to know the effects of the season in each locality. 



I write from the north centre of Ireland. During the early 

 part of the season we had a long, cruel, binding drought, 

 scorching sun, bitter east wind, and hard — very hard frosts 

 every night. I had terrible work in keeping aUve a large plant- 

 ation of dwarf Pears and Plums planted in the middle of 

 March. After this drought there came on the ground (cold as 

 ice, be it remembered, with constant frosts) two months of in- 



