October 19, 1871. ] 



JOTJBNAL OF HOBTICULTURB AND COTTAGE GARDENEE. 



293 









WEEKLY 



CALENDAR, 















^.7 



Day 







Average Tempera- 





Snn 



Sun 





Moon 



Moon's 



Clock 

 after 

 Sun. 



'?.?^ 



Month 



Week. 



OCTOBER 19—25, 



1871. 



ture near London. 



43 years. 



Bises. 



Sets. 



Rises. 



Sets. 



Age. 



Year. 











Day. 



NiRht. 



Mean. 



Days. 



m. h. 



m. h. 



m. h. 



m. h. 



Days. 



m. 8. 





19 



Th 



Twilight ends 6.52 p.m. 





69.4 



41.7 



60.5 



22 



31af6 



58af4 



after. 



34 af 8 



5 



14 54 



292 



20 



P 







69.0 



39.2 



49.1 



20 



32 6 



56 4 



Oaf 2 



41 9 



3) 



15 5 



293 



21 



S 







58.4 



89.5 



49.0 



18 



34 6 



64 4 



44 2 



56 10 



7 



15 15 



294 



22 



Sun 



20 SUXDAT iTTEE TeINITT. 





58.9 



42.4 



50.6 



28 



36 6 



52 4 



18 8 



morn. 



8 



15 24 



295 



23 



M 







58.2 



89.8 



49.0 



28 



88 6 



50 4 



44 3 



15 



9 



15 83 



296 



24 



Tn 







56.3 



39.6 



47.9 



20 



40 6 



47 4 



3 4 



82 1 



10 



15 41 



297 



25 



W 







55.9 



38.5 



47.2 



21 



42 6 45 4 



21 4 



49 2 



11 



15 48 



298 



From observations taken near London during forty-three years, the ayerage day temperature of the week is 58.0 



', and its night tem- 



peratui-e 40.1". The greatest beat was 



69', on the 22nd, 1863 ; and the lowest cold 17°, on the 23rd, 1859. The greatest fall of rain was | 



0.96 inch. 









GOSSIP ABOUT TEA EOSES. 



^^E^W ^^ were good enough to allow me to say a 

 ■^ "' few words about the best Hybrid Perpetual 



Koses a week or two ago, will you now give 

 me space for a word or two respecting the 

 Teas and Noisettes ? Possibly I may be able 

 to give 'my amateur friends "a wrinkle" or 

 two. 



I suppose^ there can be no two opinions 

 about the beauty and value of Tea Eoses — I 

 include Noisettes in the Teas — but I doubt 

 whether they are as extensively grown as they might and 

 ought to be. Wlien I first began Eose-growing I had an 

 idea that Teas were exceedingly tender, and wanted a great 

 deal of extra care and attention. Acting under this belief, 

 and on the advice of a very experienced rosarian, I had 

 two very expensive borders made for these Eoses. The 

 ground was excavated to a depth of 2 feet or more, and 

 the bottom of the bed being filled with brickbats and 

 other rough material, the bed was made with turf cut up 

 roughly, and mixed with broken bones and stable dung. 

 In these beds I planted my Tea Eoses, some being on the 

 Briar and others on the Manetti. The plants did pretty well, 

 but not so well as I expected and had hoped ; I therefore 

 determined to bud them on Briars just like the Hybrid 

 Perpetuals. These — I mean the Briars — I may state in 

 parenthesis I always plant in trenches, into wliich I put a 

 mixture (haU andhalf) of good rich pig dung and stiff yellow 

 clay, well incorporated with the bottom spit of the trench. 

 This I find incomparably better than all dung, and no one 

 who has not seen it would believe how the Briar wiU root 

 into this mixture. The result of this budding was that 

 the next year I had remarkably fine plants of Tea Eoses 

 without any extra trouble — much better, in fact, than those 

 about which I had taken such pains. 



I should add that I always protect my Teas a little in 

 the winter, even the dormant buds, by placing a little 

 bracken or common fern round the head, and tying it with 

 a bit of tarred string. 



As to the best lands, I suppose almost everybody will 

 admit that nothing can on the whole touch Marechal 

 Niel ; for size, colour, and free growth, it is certainly unap- 

 proached. It is, however, it must be admitted, rather tender, 

 and the first buds are very apt to be spoilt by spring frosts. 

 I had a magnificent display of this Eose in 1870 on a west 

 wall, but this year the buds, fmm the continued rains and 

 cold weather, for the most part decayed without opening. 

 It is singular that M. E. Verdier who introduced this fine 

 Eose should have done so in such an equivocal way ; for 

 it could wen have afforded to have been brought forward 

 on its own merits. 



I think the next best Tea is Madame Falcot ; it is 

 hardy, a capital Eose to flower, a very good grower, and 

 very beautiful in colour. I have lately had the most lovely 

 blooms of it. I think, too, it wiU make a valuable seed 

 parent, though I fear we shall not often ripen its seeds here. 

 I last year got nearly a pint of heps, and had a correspond- 

 ing number of good plants, and apparently ripe seeds, but. 

 No. 661.— Vol. XXI., New Seeies. 



I am sorry to say, only three came up. The seedlings 

 have all bloomed — one was single, another so double that 

 I do not think it will open when it is propagated, and the 

 third was about as full as the parent. If we could get this 

 colour on Marechal Niel, it would be a grand addition to 

 the Teas ; and why should we not '? 



I think Devoniensis should come next in the list, for it 

 is good in every way — large, a good grower, constant, and 

 exceedingly beautiful in its delicate shadings of yellow, 

 white, and pinky white. Moreover (although the very 

 " thickness of its petals," as a critic some time since said. 

 forbids the idea of its being raised in England"), it is, I 

 believe, unquestionably an English Eose, and, like John 

 Hopper among the Hybrid Perpetuals, can hold its own 

 in any conlpany. 



Climbing Devoniensis I do not like. It grows well 

 enough I admit, but I have always found it very tender ; 

 all my plants, notwithstanding protection, being invariably 

 so crippled by the winter as to be useless for flowering the 

 following year. This is the only Tea Eose that I grow 

 which has been so much injured by cold and wet. 



I hardly know which Tea Eoses to name as the next 

 best ; possibly .Souvenir d'Elise, Madame Margottin, 

 Madame WUlermoz, Eubens, Niphetos, Souvenir d'un Ami, 

 and Celine Forestier, and in the order named. There are 

 other good Tea Eoses, such as Adam, Triomphe de Eennes, 

 Adrienne Christophle, Jaune de Smith, L'Enfant Trouve, 

 Moiret, and President, but some of them are inconstant, 

 some shy bloomers, and some difficult to grow. 



Triomphe de Eennes, for instance, I never could grow at 

 all untU lately. I tried it in every way I could think of, 

 but it invariably, as soon as the foliage had faUy expanded, 

 cast it, so that the branches were always bare, except the 

 5 or 6 inches at the upper end. I at last tried it in large 

 pots (12 and 14-inch) on the Briar, and nothing can do 

 better than these plants. 



Adrienne Christophle is a great favourite of mine, it is 

 so strildng and novel in colour, but I must acknowledge 

 that it is very uncertain. 



Smith's Yellow is another capricious Eose. In situations 

 wliich it likes nothing can do better, but like the yellow 

 Eose, for one place in which it will do, there are a hundred 

 where it wiU not open at aU. The only plant that I know 

 of upon which the flowers almost always open well, and 

 usually do not show a green eye, is one I bought of Mr. 

 Cant some twenty-five years ago, and planted on the north 

 front of a house in Suffolk in a cold clay soil. There is a 

 building running at right angles with the west end of this 

 house which prevents this plant from ever getting a gleam 

 of sunshine, and yet, singular to say, it annually prodncfis 

 and opens fairly the most beautiful blooms. This is one 

 of those anomalies in Eose-growing which no one can 

 understand. 



L'Enfant Trouve by some, I believe, thought to be iden- 

 tical with Madame "William, is in the catalogues marked 

 as dwarf, but that is because the proper stock is not used 

 for it. The way to grow this fine Eose — for it is a most 

 beautiful and distinct variety — is to bud it on the common 

 Banksian. On this it grows very freely in.deed, and flowers 



No. 1203.— Vol. XL VI., OlD SEEIE3. 



