January 21, lfi02. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
87 
additional land when their gardens are not large enough, a,nd 
teaching them how most proStably to cultivate it, and then assisting 
them in the disposal of produce to the best advantage. Other 
things could be taken in hand by wives and daughters, such as 
making home-made wines, for sugar is cheap, and so much material 
is present in most gardens for converting into a pleasant drink, that 
many would be glad to have at hand if a pure home-made wine 
could be obtained at a cheap price that would still pay a fair profit 
to the maker. 
There are problems connected with the movemerit for amelio¬ 
rating the condition of the humble workers in agriculture which 
will have to be dealt with and worked out, but should be dealt 
with in a practical manner. Our manufacturing and other towns 
are overdone with labour, and vegetables are none too cheap for the 
poor, and in order to relieve the non-employed in these large towns, 
more industries want opening in the country districts to keep the 
country labourers at home, and even make an opening for the 
employment of some of those who have drifted to the towns and 
find little employment there. The subject is of very deep import¬ 
ance to the nation at large, and much more than passing thought 
should be devoted to the fact that we are paying foreign countries 
millions of money, much of it for produce that ought to be, and 
can be, grown in Great Britain.—W. D. 
REVIEW OF BOOK. 
77ic Ilosarian's Year Book for 1S02. Edited by tlie Ecv. H. IIony- 
WOOD D'OMnuAlN. London : Bemrose & Sons, 2.1, Old Bailey and 
Derby. 
The issue of this annual for the present year contains several chapters 
of especial interest to the Ilose-loviiig world, and as the Editor says in 
his preface, " Some of the writers are new and the subjects novel, v./hile 
old ones are trejited with freshness.” The frontispiece is an excellent 
photograph of Mr, T. W. Girdlestone, which is followed by some account of 
his work in connection with Dahlias and Roses. The other oBapters are 
as follows Rose Growing near Big Cities.” Mr. J. Bateman; "The 
Rose as a Garden Plant,” Mr. W. J. Grant; “ The Rose, and the National 
Rose Society, in 1891,” the Editor; "Experiments in Rose Hybridisa¬ 
tion,” Right Hon. Lord Penz.ance ; “Stocks,” Mr. Frank Cant; "The 
Ethics of Rose Showing.” Mr. E. B. Lindsell ; “Rose Jottings,” Mr. 
Alexander Hill Gray ; " Rose Polyantha as a Stock,” Mr. T. W. Girdle- 
stone ; " The Comparative Hardiness of Tea Roses, and their Winter 
Protection,” Mr, George Paul; and “The Weather of the Past Rose 
Year,” Mr. E. Mawley, F.M.S., Hon. Sec. National Rose Society. 
The chapter by Lord Penzance, describing his “Experiments in 
Rose Hybridisation,” is exceptionally interesting and original. We, 
therefore, take the liberty of making a short extract from an aiticle 
which wc recommend all rosarians to read in its entirety. 
Having explained the reason why the Sweet Briar was especially 
selected as a seed-parent in various crosses, the author continues as 
follows :—“ Soon after I began work, out of twenty blooms of the Sweet 
Briar that T impregnated with foreign pollen, nineteen produced hips, 
The cross-bred seedlings produced from it, moreover, have a strength of 
root and of growth far surpassing the original stock, and they strike as 
cuttings with a marked facility. In experimenting with the Sweet Briar 
as a breeding stock, I took no account of its delicious foliage, for I had 
but a slender expectation that its seedlings would be endowed with that 
additional charm. But before setting to work upon it, in order to obtain 
experience in the needfnl details, I crossed a number of Hybrid Per- 
petuals with the pollen of others of the same class. As every individual 
bloom on which I operated was marked with a label, and all details of 
(late, condition, and state of the weather at the time of working were 
faithiully recorded, the number upon which I worked was necessarily 
limited, and could bear no comparison with the doings of those who sow 
hips by thousands, gathering them proniiscuously from the finest 
varieties, without any artificial impregnation, and who esteem them¬ 
selves fortunate if one seedling out of a thousand turns out to be worthy 
of culture. This is the system I believe at present pursued both in this 
country and in France for the production of new varieties. It might be 
thought that when the two parents were carefully selected (which was 
the case with all the Hybrid Perpctuals that I tried), a better progeny 
would be obt.aincil th.an those which come up by chance from seed picked 
at random as I have just described. Such seed is often supposed to be 
the result of foreign pollen carried to the bloom on the legs or bodies of 
insects, and even the winds have not escaped suspicion .as .a party to this 
irregular intercourse. But there is in truth no ground of accusation 
against cither insects or winds, seeing th.at a Rose bloonr, self-fertilised, 
is qrrite capable of pr ducing seed, the plants raised from which are 
windy dilTercnt, not only from the parent, but from one another. I 
have constantly rroted this fact under circumstances snd cornlitions 
which absolutely preclude the intervention of foreign pollen from any 
source whatever. _ rr , • i „ 
“ The results v.hich I have obt.aincd from crossing the Hybrid lor- 
petuals with one another have, in many ii.stancrs, given me tlower-^ as 
beautiful as many that find a place in the imiserymen’s c italcgucs of 
the d.ay, but none of any especial merit. On the other hand, they have 
given me many plants of exquisite colour and scent, and some flowers 
which, though falling far short of the standard form, had special charms 
of their own. Still, upon the whole, regard being had to the labour 
involved, I see no reason to conclude that it would pay the Rose culti¬ 
vator to exch<ange the present system for one in which the seed-flowers 
should be artificially impregnated ; and I doubt if it would respond to 
the expectations of the amateur. 
“ Cross-breeding between the different families of the Rose is quite 
another matter. With the blooms of the Sweet Briar the results of so 
doing are full of interest. I tried at first to get a cross with the Persian 
Yellow Briar, or what is almost the same thing, Harrisoni, The late 
Mr. Henry Bennett told me that he had sown hundreds of hips from 
the Persian Yellow, or produced by the pollen of that Rose, but with¬ 
out any 8uccc.ss. I was more fortunate. In my first or second season 
I obtained a complete cross with the Persian Yellow. The bloom is 
rather larger than that of the Sweet Briar, and of a pale yellow, 
and the foliage quite as fragrant as that of the parent, if not more 
so ; but it is little, if at all, more full, though it is more cuppy. This 
plant is in the hands of Mr. Geo. Bunyard, of M.aidstone, and will be, 1 
I’lG. C.—SWEET BRIAR LADY PENZANCE. 
presume, distributed to those who care to possess it in the course of this 
next season. _ 
“ The Austrian Copper was the next object of my ambition, .and 
here, too, I have been fortunate. The bloom is not quite so deep in its 
colours as that of the pollen parent, but it is a close copy of the original, 
and the foli.age is quite as fragrant as that of the Sweet Briar. Then I 
tried the pollen of the Hybrid Perpetuals, and of the Hybrid Bourbons 
and Hybrid Chinas with the Sweet Briar. With all of these I have had 
no difficulty in obtaining distinct crosses. 1 s.ay distinct, because the 
wood, the foliage, the habit of growth, and the thorn, are not those of 
the Sweet Bri.ar. Tbe flower of these plants is extremely attractive, I 
think. The size of the flower vanes. They are all larger than that of 
the Sweet Briar, and of a light pink colour—something about the tint of 
the old Rose. La Rtine. Most of them, I shoukl say, have a second row 
of petals, and one or two of these seedlings have a bloom much larger 
than that of the Sweet Briar. . , . 
“ Two more of these seedlings bloomed for the first time last summer ; 
they were the offspring of the dark crimson Hybrid Perpetual, Souvenir 
d’Auguete Rividre, and their flower is of a. much deeper and richer 
colour. Among hundreds of Sweet Briar seedlings, which are evidently 
crosics, I have had only one that did not retain the sweet foliage of the 
