58 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ July 21, 1881. 
have already intimated, your heart must be in your enterprise. There 
is a good deal of “ more verbiage ”—frothy effervescence, humbug—in 
some of those gushing expressions of delight and admiration which 
we hear so often. “ Oh, Canon Hole, what a heavenly duck of a 
Rose ! ” “ Well, it’s not quite in its best form as you see it there.” 
“No; but isn’t it too awfully jollily not quite?” Misled on one 
occasion by these professions of adoration, I presented a lady with a 
lovely Rose, and not long after, when she became intense upon some 
other topic, she began to pick off the petals ! I stood astounded, like 
Launcelot when 
the Queen 
Brahe from the vast oriel-embowering Vine 
Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off, 
Till all the place whereon she stood was green ; 
and then I remembered that I had business in another direction, and 
I went to it a sadder and a wiser man. 
Then there are not a few professed admirers of Roses who only 
want them to show, or to cut, or to make their neighbours jealous. 
They have no true appreciation of the flower as a thing of beauty 
and a joy for ever, but regard it as ornamental furniture, and “ the 
sort of thing one likes to have, you know.” They come into your 
garden, and you show them some specimen of perfect loveliness, 
and they turn away, saying disdainfully, “ We have heaps of those,” 
as if they were coals or Potatoes; or, should it happen to be some¬ 
thing which they do not possess, they condescend to take a note of 
the name, and they seem to think that they are conferring a great 
honour, not only upon you, but upon the whole vegetable kingdom, 
when they make the announcement, “ We must have that.” 
Supposing the love to be sincere and the intentions hearty, what 
next ? Pure air. And with a most unaffected sorrowful sympathy 
I speak those words, because to hundreds who love the Rose as well 
as I do they mean, No hope. Every year, and many and many a time 
in that year, “ when the bloom is on the Rye ” and on the Rose, I wish 
from my heart, as I wander in my peaceful pleasant garden, that my 
brothers—born and bred some of them ’mid gardens and green fields, 
but now toiling in dusky lane and wrangling mart, and having only 
caged birds and window plants to remind them of the past—could 
share my happiness. I have seen good Roses, it is true, which were 
grown within three miles and a half of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and were 
exhibited at the first Crystal Palace Rose Show by the grower, my 
friend Mr. Shirley Hibberd. But the disappointments are so many, 
and the successes so few, that I should say to all persons proposing 
to grow Roses within six miles of a smoky manufacturing town or 
city, as Punch said to all persons about to marry—“ Don’t.” 
This pure air must nimbly and sweetly recommend itself to the 
Rose, but must not visit her cheek too roughly. Roses must have 
shelter, but not shade—free trade in sunshine, but protection from 
storms. They should have a screen of shrubs or cf walls, but it 
must not be placed too near it. They dislike wind ; and as ail things 
else which are fresh and clean, from a fair reputation to a leg of 
mutton, they must not be blown upon. Let your Rose trees have all 
the sun (it is not much) which can be had in this cloudy clime. 
As to soil, I have seen Roses growing, and have grown them, in 
all kinds of earth, from a heavy moist red clay to a light marly loam 
—in everything except gravel. If you have not a good soil naturally 
you must have it artificially ; if it’s too heavy make it light with 
lime, ashes, burnt earth; if it’s weak strengthen it with turf, leaf 
mould, i£c. Unbounded nonsense is emitted concerning soil. If 
Roses were good to eat we should have no more of it; but, as it is, 
you will hear persons who grow delicious Asparagus, the mealiest of 
Potatoes, and the biggest of Strawberries, maintaining that it is 
simply impossible to grow Roses in such a soil as theirs. The best 
soil which I have ever possessed was a rich old pasture broken up 
some six years ago. It was “ double dug,” and, having been well 
manured and manipulated ever since it is now most friable, mellow, 
and nutritious—good enough for pot Roses without any addition 
except the crocks for drainage. 
What form of Rose tree shall we grow? Our fathers were in 
ecstasies when Mr. Lee of Hammersmith, and Mr. Rivers of Saw- 
bridgeworth, introduced from Belgium (I think) the tall standards, 
and they bought them at a guinea apiece. Their children denounce 
them as mops and broomsticks—unnatural, and therefore unsightly ; 
they are gradually disappearing, but a few old fogies, including yours 
sincerely, will plant a few standard Briars each year, and bud them 
in some quiet corner, because when there is a genial frostless May—a 
phenomenon which occurs in this country about twice in a long life¬ 
time—those buds will produce the loveliest Roses which the rosarian 
can hope to see. With us (the fogies) they will perish, until—like 
single Dahlias, stage coaches, short waists, and cracked china—they 
are reproduced by Fashion as delectable novelties, and Vox Popuii 
shouts, “ Bravo ! Beautiful ! ” 
The bush is beyond a doubt the prettiest form in which we can 
grow the Rose, and this we obtain by grafting, or budding, or by 
striking cuttings from the parent plant. You have all the beauty 
of flower, foliage, and form under your eye, with this additional and 
supreme advantage over the standard tree, that, when you have 
placed a thick blanket—that is a good covering of straw manure, 
over your sleeping beauties towards the end of November—you may 
go to bed with the thermometer at zero and dream of Rose shows. 
A bed of these dwarf Roses, with the long laterals pegged down one 
year and blooming from laterals of their own the next, is one of the 
most charming sights in a garden. The bed should be round or 
oval, raised in the centre, and with a large surrounding of well-kept 
weedless grass. 
On what foundations shall we build ? This depends much upon the 
soil. Make experiment. Procure Rose trees on the Briar, on the 
Manetti, and on their own roots, from the nurseries, and also Briar 
and Manetti stocks for budding in due season. Try your hand at 
striking also, and note results. In my own case the foreigner (it 
takes its name from Signor Manetti, who raised it from seed at 
Monza, gave it to Signor Crivelli of Como, and he sent it to my 
beloved friend—the beloved friend of all rosarians—Thomas Rivers 
of Sawbridgeworth, about the year 1833), the Manetti in my strong 
soil is worthless ; the indigenous Briar, the English Dog Rose, is 
always a success. Nevertheless, I am more and more inclined by my 
experience to the belief that the favourite Rose tree of the future 
will be the Rose tree on its own roots. Meanwhile give me the 
Briar, whether it be grown from seed, struck from cuttings, or taken 
from the hedgerow or the wood. 
What sorts, what varieties of Roses shall we grow ? _ All sorts. 
Single and double, large and small; and in all forms—trailing along 
banks or towering on walls ; making fountains, arches, and aisles ; 
glimmering in plantations like “ stars which in earth’s firmament do 
shine rising from beds of shrubs, or circling them, as we saw the 
old China Rose the other day in the gardens of the Crystal Palace. 
He is no true rosarian who does not love all the Roses, and some of 
you may have read the public and indignant protest which I have 
made against an accusation which has been brought against us, that 
because we believe those Roses which you have seen to-day to be of 
all the most beautiful we are indifferent as to the other varieties ; and 
it has been suggested, that because the National Rose Society pro¬ 
poses to publish a catalogue of Roses most suitable for exhibition, it 
may be necessary to establish a rival institution to watch over the 
interests of Roses for the garden only. I think—and it is such a 
happy thought as even Burnand himself never excogitated—that I 
know more rosarians and more of the rosarian mind than any other 
living man, and what I know most surely is this—that he who loves 
one Rose loves them all. Only the other day when I had left in my 
garden some of the loveliest Roses I ever grew, and was on my way 
to the station that I might adjudicate next day at the Crystal Palace 
aforesaid, I surprised a servant who was with me by stopping my dog¬ 
cart to gaze at a garland of Dog Roses drooping down the roadside 
hedge, and I believe that most of my brethren would have been as 
charmed as I was. Where is the exhibitor of Roses who does not 
grow Roses which are not available for exhibition ? Name the writer 
on Roses who writes about show Roses only. Thomas Rivers gives 
us half a dozen pages in his “ Rose Amateur’s Guide ” as to the exhi¬ 
bition of Roses in pots. William Paul, in “ The Rose Garden,” the 
same quantity on cut Roses for show, the remainder of the three 
hundred pages being devoted to garden Roses. Shirley Hibberd, in 
the “Amateur’s Rose Book,” gives a similar space to the subject of 
exhibition; and even he who wrote specially upon it, “ How to Show 
the Rose,” occupies not less than two-thirds of his book in discours¬ 
ing upon the garden Rose. 
In fact, and in fine, it seems to me (though I must whisper this 
quite sub rosa) that some of our friends—who from soil, situation, or 
want of zeal do not grow the most perfect Roses in their most perfect 
form—are at times a little invidious (“ we are the sons of women, 
Master Page ”), and that when they declaim against our “ huge, fat, 
overgrown Roses, which anybody can have who will pluck off all the 
buds buo one, and put on tons of manure ;” and when they go into 
ecstasies about “ the darling old Cabbage, and the exquisite York- 
and-Lancaster, and the dear old Tuscan, and the rich velvety Damask, 
and the little gem Rose de Meaux ; ”—this in most cases means to me, 
“ You won’t find a Rose in my garden which anyone would look at at 
a Rose show.” It has the same significance as when short girls call 
long girls gawky maypoles, or as when gentlemen who are not at 
their ease on horseback disparage the pleasures of the chase. Give 
me the sight that is clear enough, and the heart large enough, to see 
and to admire beauty wherever and in whatever form it is found. I 
don’t believe in musicians who chatter when others sing or play. I 
contemn the critic who gloats upon a flaw (just as that clumsy rider 
of w r hom I spoke will go a mile out of his way to find a weak place in 
a fence), who, if he praises, nullifies his praise. “ Ah, yes, she’s 
pretty, but, my dear fellow, she has the fist of a pugilist“ bats 
nicely, but a mere dummy in the field ; ” “ fair at feathers, but a muff 
at fur ” (this I once heard from a third-rate shot of one of the best 
gunners of the day who had missed an invisible rabbit) ; “ undoubt¬ 
edly a nice little horse, but I hope you have not given much for him, 
for those hocks will never carry your weight.” 
I am constrained to confess that H.M. the Queen of Flowers is 
not refined in the matter of diet. She is a gross feeder, and when I 
think of the quality and the quantity of her favourite food I recall 
a passage in the letters of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe—“ I met Mrs. 
Siddons at dinner just before the death of her spouse. It was at 
Walter Scott’s, and you cannot imagine how it annoyed me to behold 
Belvidera guzzle boiled beef and mustard, swill porter, take huge 
pinches of snuff, and laugh till she made the whole room shake 
again.” So does the Prirna Donna of our stage ; so does the Rose 
rejoice in strong sustenance, solid and fluid, with occasional pinches 
of tobacco powder and lac sulphur ; but, as with Mrs. Siddons, they 
who had dined with her foi'got the beef, and the beer, and “ the pun¬ 
gent grains of titillating dust” when she appeared in all her power 
