821 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTIAGE GARDENER. 
[ October 9, 1884. 
and find they str ike quite as readily as the Teas, they Lave not 
been grown as annuals, and conjectures are not altogether in 
my line. 
As I have before stated, we have not an unlimited amount of 
glass area at our command, and as a consequence, in order to 
keep pace with the times it is necessary to resort to a certain 
amount of scheming. Cut flowers we must have in abundance 
at all times, and to supply these w'e find it the best plan to grow 
a few good species or varieties of plants extensively rather than 
attempt to cultivate a much greater variety, which, if more 
interesting, is far less serviceable. What prove the most ser¬ 
viceable may, 1 think, with advantage be reserved for another 
paper: our present subject is “ Tea Roses as Annuals.” 
Annuals are sometimes defined a.s flow’ers which last but one 
season, and as a batch of our Tea Roses last but one winter 
these, too, may for the time being be descrifed as annuals. 
Every spring we strike a certain number of cuttings in a fairly 
brisk bottom heat, though they are found to strike in a close 
frame placed in a forcing house without any bottom heat what¬ 
ever. The cuttings are made from the young shoots that have 
just matured a bloom, and these are taken oft; with a heel, the 
tops shortened to about four joints, and they are then dibbled 
in singly into 3-inch pots filled with sandy loamy soil. At one 
time they were struck in deep boxes covered with a square or 
squares of glass, and all the edges closely covered with strips of 
paper. This was the Longleat plan, but the cuttings strike just 
as surely and quickly in the single pots, and there is no check 
given by potting off. As a rule we struck more than we could 
well grow and Lower in pots ; but instead of throwing or giving 
them away I decided to give them one repotting in order to keep 
them growing, and later on, or about the end of September, to 
plant them along the front of a forcing house just cleared of 
Melons, and usually devoted exclusively to Bouvardias and double 
white Primulas. Each Melon plant is grown in a separate pit 
formed with loose bricks, and by re-adjusting the bricks a con¬ 
tinuous shallow pit was formed, and after adding a quantity of 
leaf soil to the old Melon soil and well mixing and levelling it, 
the place was ready for the Tea Roses. The plants being small 
they were, after being well soaked in tepid water, planted out 
rather thickly—that is to say, in lines about 18 inches apart each 
way. They soon took to their fresh quarters, and in addition 
to forming fresh flowering growth on the matured wood they in 
most cases pushed up numbers of branching suckers, and it is 
these that always produce much the finest blooms. Worked 
plants of new varieties on trial we find do not throw up these 
dowering suckers; hence the advantage of having Tea Roses on 
their own roots whether for planting out or pot culture. 
The drying off or starvation treatment of Tea Roses may 
result in a fairly good supply of small blooms, but to have them 
at their best and continuously they must be treated liberally. 
They are certain to bloom well, no matter how strongly they 
may grow; in fact you cannot induce them to grow freely with¬ 
out their flowering or attempting to flower abundantly. Well 
knowing this we attend well to the watering, giving to well- 
established phmts plenty of strong liquid manure, and occasional 
surfacing of Standen’s or, better still, Beeson’s artificial manure. 
Our “annuals” we work as hard as we can from the time of 
planting till the house is again wanted for a successional crop of 
Melons, and then being of no further value they are thrown 
away. Some of the best of them were once potted up, but they 
never grew well, and were soon surpassed by the newly-struck 
plants, and we find it best to treat them as annuals. If properly 
fed-up Tea Roses planted out would, 1 feel certain, continue 
under forcing treatment to yield great quantities of bloom for 
several years, and I believe this has been demonstrated, but by 
whom or where 1 am unable to state. They do not require a 
high nor fixed temperature, but cold draughts are almost fatal 
to them, being inevitably followed by a bad attack of mildew, 
and which in dull cold weather is not easily cured. 
The temperature of our house unavoidably varies consider¬ 
ably, but as a rule it ranges during the winter and early spring 
months from 50° to 60° by night, and from 60*^ to 70° by day. 
But little air is given, and then only at the top, this being more 
for the benefit of the Primulas than the Roses. In clear weather, 
cr when much fire heat is given, we syringe the plants freely, 
this being done about mid-c!ay, or when the house is closed, and 
principally in order to keep down red spider. A decoction of 
softsoap and quassia chips, or failing this tobacco water, is 
occasionally used with the syringing water, and this serves to 
ward off the attacks of green fly, while nearly clear lime water is 
a good pi-eventive of mildew. 
Rearly any variety of Tea Rose will do well under the above 
treatment; at any rate, all we have tr-ied have proved more or 
less useful. Some of the best are Alba Rosea, white, pale rose 
centre, good either in the bud or nearly expanded; Catherine 
Mermet, light flesh-coloured, the finest and most serviceable 
Rose I am acquainted with ; Comtesse de Nadaillac, yellow, tinted 
rose, good either in the bud or expanded; Devoniensis, creamy 
white, splendid in the bud; Etoile de Lyon, sulphur yellow, a 
grand acquisition, and should be grown wherever a perpetual- 
flowering Marechal Kiel would be appreciated ; Goubault, rose, 
very free, buds serviceable; Homer, blush white, richer centre, 
very sturdy and free blooming, buds and nearly expanded blooms 
being alike valuable; Madame Lambard, bright red,_buds most 
serviceable; Marie Van Houtte, yellowish white, fringed rose, 
very handsome; Niphetos, white, buds invaluable ; Safrano, 
apricot, very free, buds only valuable ; Perle de Lyon, rich 
yellow, beautiful buds and blooms ; Rubens, white, tinted rose, 
very serviceable sort; Souvenir de Paul Neyron, white, tinted 
rose ; and Souvenir d’un Ami, salmony pink, free growing, buds 
and nearly expanded blooms alike serviceable. We have also 
tried the miniature Roses Little Pet and Parqueritte with the 
Teas, and these flowered abundantly throughout the vyinter, 
some of the strong branching suckers growing to about 18 inches 
in height, and producing as many as fifty double blooms. 
—W. iGaULDEN. 
HOT WEATHER AND FRUIT TREES. 
I HAVE read Mr. Gr. Abbey’s pewerful rejoinder to my gentle critique 
(page 289) of his now celebrated article on page 191, and am not over¬ 
whelmed. Your correspondent ought to be somewhat obliged to me for 
affording him an opportunity for the display of his ability as a contro¬ 
versialist, and also opening the way to such a lucid explanation of the 
more or less obscure nature of the initial article on this subject. 
It appears after all that Mr. Abbey did not mean that immature wood 
is more fatal to fruit-production than is inclement weather with frost in 
spring ; and thus we arrive at the happy conclusion that there is little or 
no difference between us. This being so, I should have nothing more to 
say if it were not that my silence might seem discourteous after I am 
specially invited to refer to the first and last paragraphs in the original 
communication which the author reproduces on page 305 last week; 
also he ' wants an answer” to the question as to why neglected trees in 
some orchards are fruitless and cultivated trees in gardens bearing fruit, 
since it is assumed, that when frost is severe enough it destroys all 
blossoms alike. That is, I think, a fair way of putting it, and avoids the 
use of a number of inverted commas, which I never think interesting 
though 1 ecessary in exact quotations. I do not, therefore, intend using 
many of them, yet, perhaps, one or two may be needed before I 
have done. 
I did not refer to the small qualificatory clauses in question, because 
they app ared to have but trifling weight as against the great body of 
the article. Together they occupy at the most three lines of a communi¬ 
cation containing upwards of ninety ; and the word “although” in the 
first paragraph, and left out in the cold by the author in quoting, so 
enorm^ usly weakened the sentence that I thought there was litile lelt in 
it worth notice ; and as to the last paragraph that “ if the elements are 
favourable we shall have abundant crops another season,” I could not then, 
nor can I now, perceive that it has any special application to any particu¬ 
lar year ; for the whole of my contention,is that with favourable instead of 
inclement weather in spring we should have had good crops for the past 
seven years. I placed this—severely inclement weather and spring frosts, 
as the primary cause of barren fruit trees. Mr. Abbey, save in three 
lines of his article, sought to, or seemed to do, to fix the evil on immature 
wood. That, however, he now tells us was not his object, and he has 
simply been the victim of misinterpretation. As the greatest of public 
men are similarly victims, he is in that distinguished company who bear 
their burdens lightly because all of them are calmly conscious of being 
right ; but there are always plenty of people to think them wrong for all 
that. 
As to many starved and stunted orchard trees being barren this year 
and healthy cultivated trees fruitful, I suspect the blossom of enfeebled 
trees was abortive, of healthy trees fertile. No doubt Mr. Abbey knows 
why some Apple trees are like those of Notts ”—bear with “ un¬ 
changing regularity ” every alternate year, at least many trees bear 
b’ossom in that way and fruit follows, frost permitting. One season they 
are weak, the year’s rest strengthens them, and that is just all the 
difference. Thousands of orchard trees need strengthening; they need 
more of the vigour of well-managed trees in giiJens. Freely grjwn 
trees with the growths thinly disposed ripen their wood sufficiently to 
produce an abundance of well-developed blossom in nine years out of 
ten, yet we have only had good crops of fruit in one jear out of seven. 
Nearly all the finest fruit that is gathered and wins prizes is the 
produce of trees in gardens cultivated by intelligent gardeners, and is 
not obtained from orchards which “ know no cultivation ” except by 
“sheep.” All the best fruit, we have been told, that was staged at the 
Ap[)le Congress last year was the produce of trers cultivated in gardens 
by men. And so it will be again ; gardeners will beat sheep any year at 
the work in question. 
All the confirmatory evidence adduced by Mr. Abbey in support of 
his case really supports my views most emphatically. “ The crops 'n 
1869, after the hot dry summer preceding, were ruined by inclement 
weather in spring,” says Mr. Luckhurst; “ The pollen was converted into 
