134 Rose-showing. 



my eyes as I entered the show-yard of Brie Comte Robert. But 

 at one end there was a very large oblong tentj and on entering that 

 a very different sight presented itself. There all was fragrance and 

 beautiful colour. All the Roses were placed on the ground — no 

 stages of any kind being used. First of all, there ran right round 

 the great oblong tent a sloping bed of sandy earth, about five feet 

 wide, covered with young Barley, the seed of which had been sown 

 eight or ten days before. On this were thickly placed the Roses — 

 eight rows deep, or thereabouts. They were for the greater part 

 placed in small earthenware bottles, about five inches high, with 

 long narrow necks and wide globose bases ; and, placed amongst 

 the Barley-grass, these looked very well indeed. Generally three or 

 more Roses were placed in each bottle, which was made of ordinary 

 garden-pot stuff, and of the same colour ; and they looked so much 

 better than those of glass used by some exhibitors, that their use 

 should be made compulsory. Thus the most conspicuous thing in 

 the tent was a dense bed of Roses around its sides. In the central 

 parts of the tent there were beds of various shapes in which the R oses 

 were plunged in rnoss, and mostly arranged in masses j for example, 

 a bed of 700 blooms of General Jacqueminot, edged with a line of 

 Aimee Vibert ; a bed of Madame BoU, edged with white and red 

 Roses, all the flowers plunged singly in dark green moss, and so on. 

 The competitors vied rather in quantity than in quality, and one 

 exhibitor showed as many as six hundred varieties, or supposed 

 varieties — certainly he had that number of bottles. Others showed 

 large numbers also, but in most cases the Roses were inferior to 

 those seen at an English show. As for the varieties, they were 

 chiefly such as abound in England. There were quantities of that 

 fine Rose, Marechal Niel, to be seen, one bed of it being ten.feet in 

 diaineter, the blooms plunged singly in moss. The largest exhibi- 

 tor grouped his flowers very prettily by arranging wavy lines of 

 yellow and white varieties through the long mass of rose and dark- 

 coloured ones. 



Note on Rose Culture in Pots. — Visitors to the Paris 



