256 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 18, 1881. 
a somewhat dwarf and slender growth. It does not become 
purple from exposure like the old kind, and it leaves are pale 
green in colour. I have found it most useful planted out for 
a late supply under coal ashes, where the older variety is apt 
to become too large.— Edward Luckhurst. 
THE PAST EOSE SEASON. 
The past Rose season seems to me to have been rather a remark¬ 
able one in some respects, and I shall be glad if some of your corre¬ 
spondents will compare notes with me on the success or failure of the 
different varieties. We found undoubtedly fewer cater[)illar3 than 
usual in the spring. I attribute this to the fact that the first part of 
the year was so mild and the shoots made such early progress that 
large quantities of eggs were laid on the buds, which were afterwards 
pruned off. 
Mildew showed itself earljq and in some places made terrible 
havoc. It was not any worse with me than it was last year, but it 
was had enough, and my constant demands on the village shop for 
more sulphur made me almost fear that I might be suspected of 
Fenian proclivi ies and the manufacture of infernal machines. Mildew 
is a great nuisance. The sulphur seems to check it for the time, but 
does not prevent its breaking out again as soon as the sulphur is washed 
off if a hot sun be followed by a cold night. I suppose, however, 
that it is only the aggravation of mind at seeing the mildew which 
makes me imagine that sulphur has the peculiar property of falling 
on your clothes and spoiling your watch chain, whether you stand the 
windward side of the Roses or not. I find among the H.P.’s Camille 
Bernardin, Prince Camille de Rohan, Fish(r Holmes, Marie Baumann, 
and John Hopper the most liable to mildew ; and if I go down the 
rows of those varieties and find them free (they do not grow in the 
same situation), I take it for granted that there is not much mildew 
in the rosery. 
But the enemy which most seriously injured me this season was 
thrips. I suppose it was the heat and drought. I never knew it so 
bad on outdoor Roses. By the second week in Jul}’^ it had a firm hold 
on all my light Roses both H.P.’s and Teas ; and it was very annoying 
to find every bloom, however fine and well shaped, spoiled by dirty 
stains on the petals. It was especially aggravating, as it ought to 
have been a good year for the light Roses. What ought I to have 
done for it ? 
The past season ought also to have been a good one for all the 
hot-weather Roses—viz., of II.P.’s Capitaine Christy, Comtesse de 
Serenye, Duchesse de Vallombrosa, Madame Lacharms, Marie Radjq 
Baron de Bonstetten, Mons. Noman, Pierre Netting, Reynolds Hole, 
and Star of Waltham. With me the only good ones of these were 
Madame Lacharme, the only light H.P. which by coming early 
escaped the thrips, and Pierre Netting, Reynolds Hole, and Star of 
Waltham. Of these Pierre Netting, as one of your correspondents 
has remarked, was unusually good. I have hardly ever been able to 
show it before. In most seasons there is a suspicion of a hole in the 
centre, which becomes a grim reality before the judges can get to it; 
but this season it was beautifully filled up, and indeed at one show 
my Pierre Netting won the prize as the best H.P. 
It seems to me that certain Roses, which in ordinary seasons show 
an eye with the least increase of heat, in a real hot year rise to the 
emergency as it were, and form a good tight central point in the bud 
stage in anticipation of what they will have to go through. Besides 
Pierre Netting, General Jacqueminot is an example of this ; but high- 
coloured as the silver-medal General at South Kensington may have 
been when the Judges went round, I wished they had chosen some 
more lasting bloom as the best H.P. m the Show. He did not look 
very grand at half-past twelve. 
I had some good blooms o£ Reynolds Hole and of Star of Wal¬ 
tham, but Baron de Bonstetten, though it did not burn, did not come 
to much. Mons. Noman was not so good with me as last year, and 
Marie Rady was sadly wmnting in colour. Horace Vernet and Fisher 
Holmes were, next to Pierre Netting, the Roses which showed most 
conspicuously above the average with me this season. 
A. K. Williams was a great disappointment. I never had such 
growth both on maidens and cut-backs. Briars and Manetti, but this 
Rose will not stand with me either in a tent ora room. The strongest 
bloom is completely gone the next morning. After a short time the 
outer petals shrink and dwindle, leading you to suppose, if you did 
not know what a strong single 3-feet shoot it had been cut from, 
that it was a bloom with a weak stem. I have certainly seen A. K. 
Williams stand fairly well in other people’s boxes, but we must speak 
of a Rose as we find him. I have done all I could for him for years, 
and he would not be at the top of the tree in my list if I was a voter. 
The most conspicuous failure of the season I think was Marie 
Baumann, generally held, like Horniman’s tea, to be always good 
alike. I had not one good bloom, and I do not remember such a 
carcity of perfect flowers of this justly popular Rose. 
In Teas this was, as might be expected, a wonderful season for 
La Boule d’Or. Any rosarian who has not the means of growing it 
under glass, and has often been tempted to throw it away but not 
done so, must have rejoiced in it this year. I believe it to be a mis¬ 
take to give this Rose much manure. If it makes really strong 
shoots the buds come so very full and solid that nothing less than a 
week’s blazing sun under a south wall without a drop of ram will 
properly expand the blooms. A noted exhibitor actually root-prunes 
this variety to produce hard twiggy wood, and thus keeps the buds 
on short commons in order to make them open more readily% Mane 
Guillot, another difficult opener, also did welh Mr. Page Roberts 
had a beauty in his winning stand at South Kensington. Madame 
Hippolyte Jamain had also a good time. What a lovely Rose it is . 
and how completely its beauty is wasted while it is on the ti"®® ^7 
its pendent habit! Perle des Jardins also produced unusually 
shaped blooms, which makes me think that it is cold unfavourable 
w'eather during the early bud state which makes the strongest blooms 
of this Rose and of Marie Van Houtte so often come divided. It is 
a great year, too, for standards of Marechal Niel. My trees have 
been covered with blooms in every stage throughout the whole sea^n. 
Madame Wiliermoz was, as usual to my thinking, an impostor. You 
get a fair bloom occasionalljq but the unusual strength of stem, foliage, 
and bud are deceptive. Comtesse de Nadaillac was better than ever. 
Two wmnderful blooms were shown at the Crystal Palace by Messrs. 
Page Roberts and Cant. I hardly knew which was the best. As 1 
have now mentioned Rev. F. Page Roberts’s name twice I will add 
w’hat seems to me an interesting note of the past dry season that 
this gentleman, who won the premier amateur prizes for Teas at 
South Kensington and the Crystal Palace, at the latter Show twelve 
triplets against nine competitors, has a very dry gravelly soil a con¬ 
siderable distance from available water. 
Speaking of Comtesse de Nadaillac, very nearly to my 
most beautiful Tea Rose, I have often pondered why the N.R.Sd 
catalogue goes out of its way to state in a note that all the leas an 
Noisettes have smooth wood except Nadaillac. I have gone so far 
with hands sorely wounded after pruning Devoniensis and others as 
to count the number of thorns upon equal lengths of Nadaillac and 
other Teas. I confess I have generally found more on the Nadaillac, 
but often only two or three more, and I still ponder. 
Of new Tea Roses that I have seen Souvenir de Thereto Eevet is 
certainly the most striking on account of its colour, but the blooms 
I saw were rather deficient in shape and substance. I asked last 
year if anyone would give Madame Cusin a character. No one did, 
and I rather rashly took her without one. I still think she may be 
good ; but though the centre is nicely pointed the petals seem ^^ther 
lacking in number. I saw a beautiful bloom of Princess of Wales 
(Tea) at the Crystal Palace, but have not the cheek to ask if anyone 
will give her a character. 
If there were any first-class new H.P.’s I did not see them. 1 
would not have Henrich Schullheis because I could not spell him 
without a catalogue. Merveille de Lyon (I have not spelt this as it 
is in the catalogue) I think disappointing—heard too rnuch about it 
beforehand, perhaps ; and to judge from the number of times I \yas 
asked at the leading shows as to where Her Majesty was her seclusion 
is trying to the loyalty of her would-be subjects. 
Does anyone agree with me that certain Roses are deteriorating . 
I certainly fancy that Prince Camille de Rohan, for instance, is not 
nearly so good a Rose as it used to be. It requires a very strong 
shoot to bring it even true to colour, and one seldom sees it shown 
now, though I still think when it is grown strongly that no other 
dark Rose is so deep in colour. It is odd that Wm. Allen Richardson 
should, on the contrary, as one of your correspondents has pointed 
out, come much paler and wmaker in colour when grown strongly. 1 
think this Rose, which is a strong grower, is likely to become very 
popular with ladies and for buttonholes. 
I was pleased to see some time ago a useful note from one of your 
correspondents about the danger of giving liquid manure to weak 
plants. It is just the sort of mistake that a person ignorant of horti¬ 
culture is likely to make. “The plant looks weak and sickly ; let us 
give it a good strong tonic.” It is like giving beefsteak to a babe or 
a person dangerously ill. My idea is that liquid manure yields the 
best return when given to the strongest and healthiest plants, unless, 
of course, it is desirable that they should not grow too strongly. It 
is a form of the old law, “ Unto him that hath shall be given. 
Strange at first sight as a precept of Infinite Justice, but Darwin has 
shown us that it is a fundamental law of Nature. I think, too, that 
liquid manure is best administered in wet weather. Not only can 
the plants then bear it stronger, but their mouths are then open : they 
are “ on the feed,” as an angler wmuld say. 
Everyone knows, of course, that in such a dry season as the past 
one liquid manure should be given weaker than usual.^ Of course : 
but as I have been laying down the law rather too freely perhaps, 
your readers will be interested to hear that I seriously checked the 
growth of my Tea Roses by giving them in the dry weather too much 
