October 23, 1884. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
365 
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Th 
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25 
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26 
SUN 
SOth Sunday after Trinity. 
27 
M 
Sale of Nursery Stock at Brox, Chertsey. 
28 
TU 
Boyal Horticultural Society’s Fruit Show (three days). 
29 
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Sale of Bulbs by Mr. Stevens, Covent Garden. 
THE EOSES MOST FEEQUENTLY EXHIBITED IN 
RECENT YEARS. 
important contribution to Rose literature has been pre* 
pared by Mr. Edward Mawley, one of the Honorary Secretaries of the 
Isational Rose Society, and we are quite sure that all who are interested in 
the subject will join us in tendering a hearty and unanimous vote of thanks 
to the author for his excellent work."] 
coming to a more detailed consideration 
tables given on tbe next page it may be 
^®sirable to say a few words in explanation of 
tbe way in which the following analysis has been 
carried out. In the first place all the leading 
gardening papers of the past eight years—that is 
to say, ever since the first Exhibition of the 
National Eose Society was held at St. James’s 
Hall iu 1877, have been carefully searched for 
reports of Eose shows and other horticultural exhibitions iu 
which Eoses formed a prominent feature. And whenever 
there was found in these accounts a complete list of the 
varieties shown in any first or second-prize stand a stroke 
was made in a nurseryman’s catalogue against the name of 
every Eose in that stand—a fresh catalogue being used for 
each one of the eight years. It should be clearly understood 
that no notice whatever has been taken of any box of Eoses 
where the names of all the Eoses in that box do not appear 
in a report of the exhibition at which it was shown. A table 
was then prepared iu which to enter the names of the different 
varieties, the number of times they had been mentioned in 
each of these eight years, and also their totals for the whole 
period. In point of fact there were two separate sets of 
these tables, one for the Hybrid Perpetuals and another for 
the Teas and Noisettes; for, owing to the number of boxes 
noticed in the journals which contained Tea Eoses alone, it 
was found necessary to keep these two classes entirely 
distinct. 
So far all was simple and straightforward enough. But 
here the question arose. How best to treat the newer Eoses, 
so as to place them as far as possible on a similar footing 
with the more established varieties. The actual figures in 
the tables just described could not be used as they stood, 
since the former, unlike the latter, had not been exhibited 
throughout the whole of the eight years, and therefore would 
necessarily be placed at a great disadvantage. I at length 
decided to adopt a system of per centages for all the varieties. 
The manner of calculating these per-centages will perhaps be 
best made plain by giving an example of the way in which this 
has been carried out in the case of an old and also in that of 
a comparatively new Eose. For instance, the position of 
Alfred Colomb was ascertained by taking the number of 
times (125) that this variety had been mentioned during the 
whole eight years, and finding what per-centage this number 
was of the grand total (6490) of all the H.P.’s tabulated for 
the same period—viz., 1-93. Then, if we take A. K. Williams 
and treat it in a similar manner, but this time confining our 
calculations (for reasons which will presently be explained) 
to the last three years only, we obtain 114 as the number of 
times this Eose was noted down during this period, and 2*53 
No. 22 G. —"VoL. IX., Third Series. 
as the per-centage this number was found to be of all the 
H.P.’s entered for the same three years. 
Had the best of the newer Eoses (and it is mostly only 
these that have found their way into the following tables), 
been treated precisely in the same way as the veteran sorts, 
the former, notwithstanding the adoption of this system of 
per-centages, would have still remained at a considerable 
disadvantage, from the fact that for the first few years after 
new varieties come out they are not nearly so largely grown 
as the older kinds. How to get over this difficulty seemed at 
first rather puzzling, but on looking more closely into my 
tables it was soon apparent that the fifth year of its existence 
was the critical year with nearly every one of the new Eoses. 
As a rule the per-centages were found to rise by quick steps 
until this year had been reached, after which they either 
steadily maintained the positions they held or else declined 
to a lower level and remained afterwards at about that level. 
This exhibition test is very interesting as showing what I 
had often suspected to be the case, that nothing entirely 
satisfactory or decisive is ever known about any new Eose 
until it has been generally grown for at least three or four 
years. Except, therefore, in the case of the newest Eoses of 
all, whose positions depend solely upon their exhibition form 
in 1884, no notice has been taken in this analysis of the per¬ 
centage of any new Eose until five years after its introduc¬ 
tion. Even after all these adjustments have been made 
there still remains a residuum of doubt as to the precise posi¬ 
tion these newer Eoses should occupy; and this is due to the 
varying influence of the seasons—that is to say, a Eose which 
has been generally grown throughout the whole of the eight 
years is more likely to fall into its true place than one which 
has only come into general cultivation within the last two 
or three years. Fortunately this disturbing influence has in 
no way seriously affected the results. This is proved by 
confining the analysis in the case of the first twenty-four 
H.P.’s to the last three years only, when it was found that 
although certainly E. Y. Teas had fallen three steps (from 
No. 17 to No. 20), Madame Gabriel Luizet and Duchesse de 
Vallombrosa had only descended one step each, while A. K. 
Williams and Marie Verdier both took precisely the same 
positions as they had done before. 
Between eight and nine thousand Eose blooms have, I 
find, been tabulated in all—viz., 6490 Hybrid Perpetuals 
and 1905 Teas and Noisettes ; the former in as many as 
385, and the latter in no less than eighty-six different varie¬ 
ties. Although the amateurs staged about three-fifths of 
the total number of boxes, the nurserymen, owing to their 
exhibiting in much larger classes, contributed many more 
Eoses. Very many of these flowers, however, have little or 
no effect upon the results under consideration, being what 
may be termed chance blooms—extra fine blooms of varieties 
of comparatively very little value for exhibition purposes. 
In fact, taking the Hybrid Perpetuals and Teas together 
more than one-half of the total number of varieties were 
found to have been entered in the original tables less than six 
times in all. 
It may now be asked : “ Who were the exhibitors of all 
these beautiful Eoses upon which this analysis is based ? ” 
In reply I might name nearly every exhibitor of any stand¬ 
ing at all in the Eose world. Let a list of those, however, 
whose Eoses have had the greatest influence on the results 
suffice, bearing in mind that for all practical purposes this 
influence has been in proportion to the positions occupied by 
the different exhibitors as prizewinners during the past eight 
years. 
Amongst the long list of amateurs we find such well- 
known names as J. H. Arkwright, G. Baker, E. N. G. Baker, 
Captain Christy, C. Davies, Eev. E. L. Fellowes, W. G. 
Girdlestone, W. J. Grant, T. B. Hall, G. P. Hawtrey, T. B. 
Haywood, the Eev. Canon Hole, T. Jowitt, Eev. J. H. Pem¬ 
berton, Eev. Page Eoberts, W. G. Sharp, A. Slaughter, 
A. G. Soames, A. J. Waterlow, and E. E. Whitwell. And 
No. 1882.—Yol. LXXr., Old Series. 
