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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the seedlings developed during that time now number over fifty thousand, 

 whilst those which have, in our opinion, been good enough to take their 

 place in your shows and gardens scarcely amount to one hundred. My 

 firm have always held it a duty to send out only those which they believe 

 to be worthy of cultivation, and which in their opinion will advance the 

 species. 



You will gather from what I have said the enormous waste of time, 

 money, and energy incidental and consequent upon the introduction by 

 raisers of any new Rose into commerce. 



1 have studied the question of hybridisation in its many aspects, and 

 practically applied and tested every theory which a long experience could 

 suggest, and yet I have to confess, as the result of almost a life's work, 

 that I have failed to reduce to a certainty a single theory for the certain 

 production either in form, fragrance, or colour of a seedling containing 

 even one characteristic which the hybridist desires it should contain. 

 Nature retains locked up in her as yet inaccessible depths the secret 

 which will enable the hybridist to produce the type of Rose his desire 

 may suggest. Until this is yielded up he must be content to sacrifice 

 time and money for the sake of his calling, and trust that in the vastness 

 of his sowings fickle Nature may from time to time deal kindly with him, 

 and enable him to delight the world with still finer examples of God's 

 marvellous creation which man has fittingly called the Queen of Flowers. 



In conclusion I can only say, if there are any to whom the subject 

 of hybridisation holds an interest, that I shall be happy, if they will pay 

 a visit to the Emerald Isle, to show them some of the results of the 

 labours of my brother and myself as hybridists in the form of many 

 thousands of seedlings ; a wonderful example of Nature's inexhaustible 

 resources of powers of variation, from which I think the visitor will draw 

 a fuller and better appreciation of the darkness still clinging to this 

 interesting branch of floriculture. 



