September 21, 1882. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 265 
best bearing and disease-resisting kinds. Now we have only 
some half a dozen varieties. These are Schoolmaster, Magnum 
Bonum, Scotch Champion, Improved Peach Blow, Gloucester 
Kidney, and Mona’s Pride. Probably we may yet discard Peach 
Blow and the Champion, but the others are excellent. Not one 
in a hundredweight of Schoolmaster nor Magnum Bonum are 
diseased, and we advise all who grow Potatoes in garden or field 
to give those two a good trial. 
Peas .—These have been very satisfactory this season. Mildew has 
hardly existed. Had it become bad, good quantities of soot water 
have been given to check it. Of new kinds Webb’s Electric Light 
has done well. It grows about 5 feet high. The pods are rather 
narrow and dark green in colour ; on an average they contain 
nine and ten well-flavoured peas. It is very prolific, the pods 
being crowded with peas, and appears well worth growing in all 
gardens. Walker’s Perpetual Bearing is another good variety. 
It does not become ready for use so soon as the preceding, but it 
continues bearing much later. The pods come in long succession, 
and the produce is well flavoured. Day’s Sunrise will be grown 
again. It has a splendid constitution, is an enormous bearer, and 
good for coming in very early or late in the season. It may 
be termed a good all-round Pea. Of larger kinds Culverwell’s 
Giant Marrow has everything to recommend it. It grows most 
freely and robustly. The pods form and fill well from the first, 
there being frequently as many as twelve peas in them. The 
flavour is second to none, and it might well be termed the Pea of 
Peas. There is another of Mr. Culverwell’s seedlings, but it is 
now in the hands of Mr. May of Leeds, and is not yet in com¬ 
merce. It is as robust as the Giant Marrow, also as prolific and 
good, the chief differences being that it is a little narrower in the 
pods and paler in colour. As a brace of Peas these two would be 
difficult to match. Laxton’s Omega is always a favourite late sort. 
Woodford’s Marrow, and some more of the “ good old Marrows,” 
are far inferior to the newer kinds. It will be long before Tele¬ 
graph is pressed out of the market. It is grown in almost every 
garden throughout the country, being much valued for its deep 
green colour and other good qualities.—A Kitchen Gardener. 
COSMOS BIPINNATUS. 
The plant shown in the woodcut (fig. 43) is a beautiful Mexican 
annual that is far too seldom seen in gardens, as it well merits a 
place in the border or on the rockery. Its rich rose-coloured 
flowers and divided leaves give it a unique appearance, readily 
distinguishing it from its numerous allies in the great family 
Corapositfe to which it belongs. It is an old plant, having been 
described by Cavanilles in 1791 from specimens which flowered 
at Madrid in the autumn of 1789, and it is said to have been intro¬ 
duced to England about twelve years subsequently, although it is 
still comparatively rare. Willdenow changed the name to Cosmea, 
but the older title is now generally adopted. The plant well 
deserves its name, which signifies “ beautiful.” 
NOTES ON ROSES AND TOMATOES. 
I AM very glad “ Rosarian ” has written so decidedly about 
standards. I daresay your readers may think I am prejudiced, 
but he has very concisely and practically stated what I have 
always considered the objections to them. In 18G0 I lost every 
standard I had but two out of about 150. Old Baronne Prevost 
and Gdndral Jacqueminot were the only two that lived. I made 
up my mind I would never plant another, but a friend of mine 
made me a present of a dozen a few years after, from some which 
he had imported from a French nursery ; but another severe 
winter (I forget exactly which winter it was) again killed every 
one. I maintain it is contrary to the nature of a Rose to grow it 
in the way standards have to be pruned and treated. A Rose 
naturally recuperates itself from the base by throwing up young 
and vigorous shoots, especially if care is taken to cut away all old 
wood that is more than two years old. 
I am quite sure that Mr. Bardney is right in recommending 
amateurs to try their success in growing Roses on their own roots 
from cuttings. I am also quite sure in my own mind that the 
reason why Roses on the Manetti succeed so well, as a rule, on 
ordinary good garden soil is that after two or three years, if the 
junction of the scion and the stock is sufficiently covered with 
soil when planted, the Roses soon get established on their own 
roots, especially those which are more vigorous in growth. Very 
likely the dwarf and tender sorts, especially if the soil is at all 
clayey or damp, or if the aspect is unfavourable, may succeed 
in that case better either on seedling Briar or on cultivated Briar 
cuttings. & 
Where the failure of standards and half-standards often arises 
is from the way in which they are in the first instance rooted-up 
ruthlessly from the hedgerows by men who in late autumn or 
during the winter, when other work is slack, go round with a bill¬ 
hook and a small-pointed long draining spade and cut them out 
of the hedgerows, regardless of their roots. They are then tied up 
in bundles, perhaps laid in a shed, or earthed-up for a time in 
some outlying place, till there is a sufficient number collected to 
take to a Rose nursery for sale. These stocks are then planted, 
and all that shoot sufficiently strongly are budded when the time 
comes ; but the question is, How many of these have really re¬ 
covered their rough treatment ? and how many will bear trans¬ 
planting at the end of another year or two years, as the case may 
be ? I believe any person who has a cold frame facing north, as 
Fig. 43.—Cosmos bipinnatus. 
some have, at the back of a vinery or stove may strike Roses very 
well by putting from 5 to 6 inches of good light soil—half leaf soil 
and sandy loam being the best—and dibble in good strong cuttings 
from 6 to 8 inches long, covering all afterwards with riddled 
ashes, and after a good watering with a rose keep the lights close, 
only ventilating occasionally on dull days. There is hardly any 
necessity for watering again unless the frames get very dry, or 
till there are signs of fresh growth in the earlier spring months. 
“ W. E. G.” sends some very useful remarks on Tomatoes. I 
can strongly recommend growing Tomatoes from cuttings and not 
from seed. I grew several from a mixed packet of seed last year, 
and selected out from some which I had in pots in a vinery one 
which bore more freely and had better-flavoured fruit than any 
other. I do not know its name, but I will send two or three 
fruits next week to see if it can be recognised. I grew some seed¬ 
lings I saved from it, but I also struck it pretty freely, and am 
