274 



JOUENAL OF HOETICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEK. 



[ October 12, 1871. 



have the convenience for wintering Geraniums in the way I 

 recommend, but I do strongly object to the cold and damp 

 treatment of Geraniums being still advocated as the best, and 

 it is altogether a fallacy to suppose that a plant is made tender 

 by being kept warm and in a growing condition during winter, 

 or that it is hardened and its constitution made stronger by 

 being kept cold ; on the contrary, I think that the reverse is 

 generally the case. Plenty of light and air, with a sufficiency 

 of water at the roots in accordance with the amount of evapora- 

 tion, is the great secret, if it can be called a secret, of success. 

 Nothing, of course, can be more enfeebling than forcing plants 

 in winter in close, shaded houses where all the growth is neces- 

 sarily lank and succulent ; but this is a far different thing to 

 what I am speaking of, and the cost of double-span houses 

 with fixed rafters about 10 feet wide each is comparatively 

 small ; and if the Editors would like it, I will send drawings 

 and details of a house only 30 feet by 10, which will hold about 

 three thousand bedding plants in 4-inch pots, the glass put in 

 without putty or laps, and plenty of ventilation secured with- 

 out any hinged windows. [By all means do. — Ei>s.] All gar- 

 deners who have seen it have taken a great fancy to it. 



I have allowed these prefatory notes to be too long to say 

 anything with regard to the Geraniums themselves this time, 

 but will do so in my next, and must apologise to many of 

 your readers if 1 have only repeated what they have often heard 

 before. — C. P. Peach. 



THE BEST ROSE IN THE ROOM. 



In two Bose Associations, to which I have the honour of 

 belonging, a somewhat new form of competition has lately been 

 started, by offering a prize for the best Eose in the show. 

 It may be interesting to some of your readers to hear the 

 result, and to know the names of the successful Eoses. At 

 first it was considered to be hardly fair that Tea Eoses should 

 be pitted against Hybrid Perpetuals, and perhaps scarcely 

 possible to compare the two ; however, that is now done, and 

 in one instance at least a Tea Eose was the winner. The extra 

 work given to the Judges is very considerable, and necessitates 

 most exact knowledge of a Bose's " points " and special excel- 

 lencies : perhaps such a prize is only possible among a small 

 number of competitors ; with us, at any rate, the thing has been 

 a great success. The adjudging was entered upon as a labour of 

 love, while the interest excited was very considerable. It is a 

 prize that has the advantage of being, not unfrequently, taken 

 by a Eose out of a box which had previously been unsuccessful, 

 thus helping to spread the awards over a somewhat wider area. 

 This is especially desirable where the rule prevails, as among 

 US, that no competitor shall take more than three prizes at 

 the same show. It is evident that a correctly-kept list of such 

 prize Eoses would furnish the names of a series, which, as 

 they say, " no gentleman's family should be without." 



All Bose growers must have remarked how, in certain seasons, 

 gome Eoses seem to do so much better than in others. " Every 

 dog has its day," perhaps every Dog Bose ; certainly it is the 

 case in the upper ten thousand. This is strikingly brought 

 out in awarding the prize to "the best Eose in the Show." 

 Sometimes a new Eose will carry all before it, as Marechal 

 Niel, and La France, which I have known take two prizes, 

 one as " the best single bloom," and another as incomparably 

 the finest flower exhibited ; at other times old friends most 

 securely hold their own, and Charles Lefebvre defies all comers. 



To begin with, there is, this year, the Eose that challenged 

 all England, which it would have been unpardonable if florists 

 Jiad not thus recorded in their catalogues. 



"E. H. S. Great Show at Nottingham. 



June 27.— Premier Rose Dal!o"of Edinbnrgh." 



Looking back over the annals of our county Association, I 

 find, and very naturally, Charles Lefebvre standing at the 

 head of the catalogue. On that occasion, in 1869, Madame 

 Margottin was his companion as queen of the Tea Eoses. At 

 another show in the same year Alfred Colomb came to the 

 front. In 1870, a Eose that is somewhat uncertain, Pierre 

 Netting, was conqueror in the contest : in the present year, 

 most unexpectedly, Prince Camille de Eohan; and the prize 

 bloom, it may be remarked, had been grown on a Eose on its 

 own roots beneath a south-west-aspect wall. Marie Eaumann 

 at a larger show, and much more naturally, was quite unap- 

 proachable. At a show in the autumn of the present year 

 a comparatively unknown Bose gained all our sufl'rages — Mon- 

 sieur Woolfield, who, both for shape and colour pre-eminent, 

 appeared on this occasion, to have surprised even himself. 



He would probably, by that appearance, have won hia way into 

 more than one garden. 



Thus my catalogue ends, but if this kind of prize or inquiry 

 has been known in other counties besides that in which I write, 

 and which some of your readers will probably recognise, now 

 that I have set the ball rolling, let others state their experience 

 and the champion Eoses. — A. C. 



POTATOES. 



The soil of your correspondent " K." (see page 235) must be 

 unearthly, and I should think lunar volcanic, or it would not 

 play such pranks with Potatoes. The bare idea of his reject- 

 ing the Ashleafs is enough to make one think this, for after 

 many, many years of experiment, I can safely say that for 

 spring, summer, and early autumn eating there is no sort to 

 approach the four or five sorts of Ashleafs, including the 

 Gloucester Eidney. Their flavour is beyond approach, and 

 after them, not the deluge, but the old true Lapstone — not 

 purple, mind — and any gentleman of good taste would be 

 satisfied. As to the Early Bose, and, indeed, all the Yankee 

 sorts, they are, as compared with the above, nasty ; I can say 

 nothing with less meaning. They have been introduced by 

 advertisers, and should be avoided. 



My soil is not from the moon, and is not at all unearthly, 

 but is a dry, sandy, calcareous loam, which never fails in giving 

 us good Potatoes of English sorts. I received my seed of 

 Early Bose and Goodrich from Mr. Barron of the Boyal Hor- 

 ticultural Society's gardens, at Chiswick, and also from Boston, 

 U.S. " E." has most likely been cultivating some English sort 

 instead of that horrible misnamed Early Eose, a " lucus a non 

 lucendo," and has thus been deceived, for, depend upon it, no 

 American sort equals or approaches to equality our favourite 

 English kinds, which it seems the French, with their peculiar 

 horticultural conceit, have recently found out, and which the 

 Americans, if their perverse climate will allow them to grow 

 Ashleafs, will also find. As to the exhibition of fifty kinds of 

 Potatoes, why not make it one hundred ? I could select ten 

 sorts from one bin. Out of the fifty let the exhibitors select 

 five for the table of a gentleman, and two or three more pro- 

 ductive sorts for cottagers, and say two for cattle, such a sort 

 as the Mormons seem to eat, and which is now imported by 

 some Mormon-lover. Surely the exhibiting of large numbers 

 of Potatoes is a vanity. — Solanum. 



A GARDENERS HOLIDAY.— No. 1. 

 Theke is much of historical interest in the neighbonrhcoi 

 of Kelso, and the town is beautifully situated at the meeting 

 ot the Teviot and Tweed. Standing on the well-bnilt bridge 

 which crosses the Tweed, at one end we see the old Abbey built 

 by King David I. (whom one of his successors designated " A 

 sair saunt for a crown "), one of the most striking ruins of its 

 kind in Scotland. Looking up the river on the left-hand side 

 one sees the ruin of old Eoxburghe Castle, the scene of many 

 a fierce contest between the English and Scotch. James II. (of 

 Scotland) was killed by the bursting of one of his own cannon 

 when directing the siege of this Castle ; the spot is still pointed 

 out. There is much more to be seen here of great interest to 

 the antiquary. 



There is also at Eelso one of the best-arranged nurseries in 

 the south of Scotland, that of Messrs. Stuart & Mein. The 

 old nursery on the Coldstream road had to be given up to the 

 authorities, and has now been converted into a cemetery. New 

 grounds have, however, been taken at Croft House ; these are 

 in two divisions. One part has been planted with trees and 

 shrubs, which were removed from the old grounds, and are now 

 in sturdy and luxuriant health ; the other division contains an 

 extensive range of new hothouses, and is also devoted to grow- 

 ing annuals, bedding plants, Gladioli, &c. The houses are all 

 of the span-roofed description. The propagating house and 

 show house are each 60 feet long by 15 feet wide ; in the centre 

 of the propagating house is a glass-covered pit, and stages are 

 fixed all round the sides and near the glass to receive the plants. 

 The show house has a centre stage and staging round the sides, 

 and is well adapted for growing plants as well as for showing 

 them off to the best advantage. The whole range of glass 

 houses is heated by one of Shanks's combined tubular and 

 saddle boilers, and this Mr. Manson, the manager, assured me 

 did its work in the most satisfactory manner. It may be as 

 well to notice, in passing, that where a large extent of glass 

 surface is heated on the one-boiler system, it is a mistake to 



