14 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 3, 1895. 
at naught, I cannot see the use of allowing it to remain a dead letter, at 
the same time its enforcement would lead to endless dissension, and be 
most prejudicial to the interests of the Society. Doubtless the rule was 
originally framed as a protection for the small grower and in order to 
prevent large growers from sweeping the board. 
The new and most sensible regulations for dividing exhibitors into 
classes according to number of plants grown by them has rendered the 
original rule quite obsolete. These regulations seem all that ia necessary, 
bad faith in keeping them is easy of proof ; while the distinction 
between amateur and professional when two-thirds of the flowers 
exhibited in the amateur classes are grown by professional gardeners is 
simply ludicrous. The true amateur is not afraid of meeting professional 
skill, but professional numbers, and would be quite willing that the 
professional gardener should compete against him with flowers grown 
in his “ own cottage garden.” ■* ., 
I plead in the best interests of the Society, and for the welfare of all 
true amateurs, in the hope that every year may see the membership of 
the National Kose Society largely increased, and the pleasure experienced 
by the enthusiastic Rose grower more widely known.— A. F. Grace. 
The Current Questions. 
The Rose analysis may, I think, as “ Storm in a Teacup ” suggests, 
be now dropped. I would only point out to Mr. Mawley that what I 
suggested was not the doing away with his present system, but merely 
the adding beside it, in a separate column, the actual figures. 
I should advise “ Gleaner ” to entirely mistrust his friend’s account 
of meetings in future, as he has in two cases at least managed to make 
members say exactly the opposite of what they did say, which does not 
tend to a right view of things. He says that on my resigning my seat 
on the Committee I was proposed as a Vice-President, and that “ to 
raise a laugh, the prospective Vice-President replied ‘ That is what I 
wanted.’ ” I hope that if I had been cad enough to think such a thing 
I should not have been so stupid as to say it. What I did say was 
“Sorry I spoke,” honestly intended at all events to mean the exact 
opposite of what is attributed to me, though no doubt poorly and 
insufficiently expressed. But I could not at the moment think of 
anything else to say. I could not return thanks before I had been 
elected. 
Then as to the gardeners—surely there is here a misunderstanding. 
I took the resolution to be against gardeners showing their employers’ 
flowers in their own names only, and that the right would still remain 
to them, as heretofore, of showing in their employers’ names with their 
own (if necessary) added as gardeners. This resolution I voted for, and 
shall continue to do so, if that is what was meant. 
Then as to Mr. Grace’s extraordinary letter, “ Gleaner’s ” friend 
states that Mr. Lindsell said “ he would read the paragraph from 
page 536, although it rather gave his case away.” I understood Mr. 
Lindsell to say (I was sitting actually next him), “ it rather gave his 
case away,” meaning, of course, Mr, Grace’s. That Mr. Grace’s letter 
did give his own case away seems to me to be plain enough ; in fact I 
fancied it, I regret to say, a stronger argument in favour of the enforce¬ 
ment of regulation 13 than the terms of Mr. Lindsell’s motion. We 
shall be happy to hear “ Gleaner’s” own ideas, and his comments upon 
what he has heard with his own ears, but this hearsay business he will 
find unsatisfactory to himself as well as others, for we shall hold him 
responsible. 
Mr. Grahame well points out tbe astounding position taken by Mr. 
Grace, of which a great deal more must be heard. Surely “ Storm in a 
Teacup does not realise it. He has made another shocking bad shot, 
and he must not call me “ parabolic,” for that is his own parable this 
time. Mr. Grace (page 536) does not object to regulation 13 itself, but 
to Mr. Lindsell’s motion that it “shall be repealed or enforced.” He 
tries, in an astonishing manner, to point out reasons why it should not 
be enforced, but does not suggest or apparently approve of its repeal. 
Another absurd point is that there is nothing which Mr. Grace says 
the humble amateur wants to do which he may not do at present, for 
he does not mention exhibiting. He may grow, and prune, and bud, 
and sell his Roses as much as he likes, and nobody will interfere with 
him. It is only when he wants to exhibit as an amateur that regula¬ 
tion 13, as it stood before, is against him. And how on earth then could 
Mr, Lindsell s motion “ that it be repealed or enforced ” have any 
“disastrous effect” upon him or anyone else, unless he deliberately 
purposes to exhibit contrary to the regulations ? 
I am SMry to disagree with Mr. Grahame upon a minor point in this 
matter. He says (page 566) “ It is not an amateur’s duty to fight their 
(^<3., the trade-growers’) battles.” Now I think it is, and my idea of the 
National Rose Society is that amateurs should make it their business to 
defend the rights and privileges of the trade when infringed by 
amateurs, for it is very difficult and awkward for the trade to speak in 
their own defence. And I feel sure that the professionals on the 
other hand would, if any case should arise of the rights of amateurs 
being infringed by a member of the trade, defend us in like manner. 
I hope to be permitted still to wear in general the old coat (“ W. R. 
Raillem ”) which I have become used to, but on this occasion I am forced 
by “ Gleaner ” to sign myself.—A. Foster-Melliar. 
P.S.—I am very sorry the above communication was not in time for 
last week’s number, as it is not pleasant to feel that such an extraordi¬ 
nary imputation as that of “Gleaner’s” has been left unanswered. 
Mr, Grahame (p. 585) “congratulates ‘Gleaner’ on his most admirable 
resume of the proceedings”; but when it is remembered that Mr. 
Grahame acknowledges he was not present at the meeting, and that 
“ Gleaner ” gives us to understand, in his opening and closing sentences, 
that he was not there either, the value of such commendation may be 
fairly appraised.—A. F, M. 
National Rose Society—The Portsmouth Rose Show Blunder, 
The expose by Mr. Jeans in the last issue of the Journal (page 685) 
of the action of the Secretaries (as I consider Mr. Mawley is involved in 
these proceedings) in the Portsmouth question should cause some 
mental perturbation to these officials if they are capable of properly 
seeing the wrong they have done, in a most discourteous way, to those 
interested in that proposed meeting. Both the Secretaries were well 
aware, and for some time, that Mr. Spittal was strenuously exerting 
himself to get the Portsmouth authorities to invite our Society to hold 
their southern show there in 1896 (more than six weeks ago I saw the 
correspondence that had then passed between Mr. Mawley and the 
Vicar of Havenstreet, Isle of Wight), so I distinctly say that there has 
been little short of a deliberate cabal got up, and the Reading folk, who 
have no claim so soon after the Windsor show, sought after in order that 
the offer of the Portsmouth Council might be opposed. 
The reason for the rejection of Portsmouth, I suppose, was given 
by Mr. D’Ombrain at the annual meeting, as he seems to have 
oeen the prime mover in opposing everything ; but it would not 
bear one minute’s investigation, and I can only assume that it was 
stated with the belief that no one in the room had any knowledge of 
the true position. I hear it was stated that Portsmouth has little or 
no proper railway facilities. That such an assertion could be accepted 
by any business men (and I assume that the trade members of the 
Society call themselves business men), with any knowledge of the 
railways in this country, passes my comprehension. As a mere matter 
of fact, which can be easily tested by reference to an “ABC ” or a 
“Bradshaw’s Railway Guide,” two railways run directly to Ports¬ 
mouth—viz., the Brighton line and the South-Western. The Brighton 
line is in direct communication with the North-Western at Clapham 
Junction, both railways using the same platform ; and it is also in 
direct communication with the Great Eastern, Metropolitan, Midland, 
and Great Northern at New Cross. The South-Western is in direct 
communication with the Great Western, of which fact I should think 
even children (not to speak of grown-up people or so-called business 
men) are aware, as Her Majesty the Queen invariably goes over the 
Great Western Railway and runs on to the South-Western when going 
to the Isle of Wight, twice every year. I think this answers the 
imprudent assertion, safe enough when stated before an audience 
apparently unable to see its absurdity, that Portsmouth has not good 
railway facilities. However, it is plain that this assertion was merely 
used as a means towards an end, and that end was, for some occult 
reason, to have the southern show at Reading—eighteen miles from 
Windsor, and no more a southern town than Gloucester 1 I most 
unfortunately was unable to be at the meeting on the 13th ult.; no 
other subscriber to the N.R.S. who is a member of the Stock Exchange 
was present, it being the payment day of an important settlement, 
otherwise I certainly should have flatly contradicted this untrue state¬ 
ment about want of railway facilities to or at Portsmouth. But is not 
the foregoing fiasco on a par with everything which has most recently, 
not to speak of the past, been characteristic of the management of the 
National Rose Society? 
In one of your contemporaries some months ago I compared the 
progress of the Royal Horticultural Society since 1887 with that of the 
National Rose Society in the same period. The contrast is absolutely 
ludicrous. Progression v. Stagnation. Why is it so? Because one 
Society is managed by capable men ; that their Secretary is a man of 
indomitable perseverance and grit, one of the ablest managers of any 
Society in England, well seconded by his Assistant Secretary, and that 
the R.H.S. is run on business principles. In contrast I may sum up the 
position and management of our Society in one line—it is just the 
opposite of the R.H.S. The policy of one Society is fixed, that of the 
other is vacillating. What is done at one N.R.S. Committee (when 
you can find where it is sitting 1) is frequently undone at another. What 
is considered an exploded system, such as having two Committees, in 
one year, is applauded and restored the next, and so on ad infinitum. 
An anonymous correspondent writing recently to you stated that the 
Society was to be congratulated on its doing so well in 1894, because trade 
has been in a disastrous state. I do not suppose your correspondent is 
an authority on financial matters. In fact he plainly shows by his 
statement that he is not so. If any of your readers know anything 
about city affairs, they know that both in the press and in private 
circles it has been long accepted as correct that trade in 1894 has 
improved and still maintains that position. This is to be read daily, 
weekly, and monthly in the city papers and magazines, and it is quite true. 
The “ Financial News,” in its review of the year, published on December 
3l8t, closed with the following sentence : “The year closes with every 
indication of improving trade and encouraging conditions, and the New 
