242 PROCEKDiNGS OF THE [June, 1890. 



■were in full bud and their new green slioots were as full of sap as they usually 

 are a month and a half later. Then, on the March 2d, came the first rude check. 

 The thermometer fell suddenly, wdthin a few hours over 40°, and touched 29°, 

 but remained below the freezing point only about 30 minutes. The next morn- 

 ing the temperature fell to 28°, but. as on the day previous, rapidly rose above 

 the freezing point and remained above 50° until the morning of the 9th, when 

 there was another sudden decline to 32*^, accompanied by the heaviest fall of 

 snow seen in Charleston for many years. Even after this last freeze the plants 

 in the City gardens exhibited little or no signs of serious damage, and even so 

 tender a shrub as the heliotrope remained alive in the open air, but one week 

 later, on the 16th, came the killing frost, when the temperature fell to 25° and 

 remained far below the freezing point for several hours. The next morning the 

 gardens looked as if they had been swept by fire; orange trees which a few hours 

 bc?f ore had been rejoicing in a wealth of tropical foliage, hung limp and blasted, 

 a id thousands of rose buds which were ready to burst into magnificent color and 

 fragrance, hung their heads in death. Truly it was a slaughter of the too confi- 

 ding little innocents. 



As to the Tea roses, the loss of their buds meant simply a delay of bloom 

 until they could recover from the shock and put forth a new crop, but with 

 the Hybrid roses it was a more serious matter. The great majority of this 

 class produce only one crop of roses a year, so that when the crop was killed 

 iheir bloom for the year was over. I cut back the bud-bearing shoots of about 

 one-half of the Hybrid roses in my garden ; the other half I left untouched. 

 Of those I cut back, the Magna Charta, Antoine Mouton, and Paul Neyron 

 were the only types which put forth new flower-stems. The others, as soon 

 as the temperature warranted it, put forth new shoots, but they were entirely 

 flowerless. Those which I left uncut, in tne majority of cases, produced flowers 

 of a very inferior quality, mostly mishapen, off color, and uudersize. Others 

 did not bloom at all. This experiment satisfies me that, with the exception of 

 a very few varieties, the Remontant roses, like peach and pear trees, when de- 

 prived of their b ids in the Spring make no further effort to produce blooms 

 until the following Spring. Magna Charta, Antoine Mouton, Paul Neyron, and 

 perhaps a few others of similar habits, are exceptions to the rule, because like 

 some fruit trees, they produce a second bloom after the first Spring bloom is 

 over, and the Paul Neyron frequently blooms moderately at intervals through- 

 out the Summer, especially if the season is a wet one. The Hybrid-Tea roses 

 which possess the ever-blooming quality of the Tea roses with the magnificent 

 flowers of the Hybrids, were affected only as the Tea roses were and, except in 

 case^ where the plants were killed by the sudden check, the lost crop of buds 

 was very soon replaced by another, but the effect upon all classes of roses was 

 either to destroy the bloom for the season, or to delay it three or four weeks. 

 So it was that at the Floral Exhibition of the Agricultural Society of South 

 Carolina, held on the 8th and 9th of Maj-, two weeks later than usual, the dis- 

 play of roses was so poor that the Judges decided to give no first premium at all. 



