430 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 16,1895. 
Eose Maeechal Niel. 
I FAIL to see why “ W. R. Eaillem ” (page 406) should be so much 
surprised at my recommending gardeners to increase their stock of this 
fine Rose by grafting, as the plants produced by this means are in no 
way inferior to budded or own-root plants for forcing. The only 
difference is that by grafting we can propagate quicker than in any 
other way, and this was my reason for advising it. There is no need to 
keep the plants in pots ; they may be so grown or planted out according 
to requirements. If a clean healthy growth is made, and this well 
ripened, fiowers in abundance will be produced, and there is no reason 
why grafted plants should not succeed if trained on the lines laid down 
by “ W. R. Eaillem.”—H. E. R, 
In an old lean-to greenhouse owned by Mr. White, Havant, is 
growing a very fine plant of Mar^chal Niel. The blooms do not exhibit 
that rich colouring so much admired in this Eose, but they possess much 
substance of petal, and are extremely useful to Mr. White in bis business 
as a florist. The plant was budded on to a Gloire de Dijon growing on 
its own roots, having been raised from a cutting.—E. 
Rose La Feance, 
The engraving (page 407) faithfully represents this charming Eose 
as seen at its best. For growing in 4-inch pots to give one, and some¬ 
times two, blooms on each a year old, it is a capital variety. Cuttings 
4 inches long taken in May from plants that flowered in j\pril root 
readily inserted in sandy soil and plunged in a gentle hotbed. Shade 
must be provided until roots are formed, or callusing will be retarded. 
If the cuttings are inserted several in one pot they will require potting 
separately when well rooted, and should go direct into the sized pot 
named. Grown steadily in a cold frame for a time, afterwards giving 
them a sunny spot out of doors for the remainder of the autumn to 
mature the growth, these plants will produce excellent blooms during 
April and May,—M. 
Rose Mes, W. J. Geant. 
I AM glad to note “ W, R. Eaillem’s ” vigorous protest against the 
renaming of this fine Rose, and also to find that protest supported by 
your editorial note. I have already expressed in your columns my 
determination to show and recognise it only under the name originally 
given to it, and I earnestly hope that all members of the N.R.S. at least 
will do the same. 
Some to whom 1 have spoken on the subject say, “ Oh, but if a man 
buys the entire stock of a new Eose, surely be may call it what he 
likes Z” The reply to this is that it depends on the circumstances of 
the case. If a selection is made from a number of unnamed and 
unexhibited seedlings the purchaser may certainly do as he likes, but 
that was not the case with this Eose. The raisers had, I suppose, 
obtained permission to name it after the wife of one of the ablest 
rosarians this country has known ; they had exhibited it under this 
name throughout an entire season, and under this name it had received 
many F.C.C.’s, and the highest honour a new Eose can obtain—viz., 
the gold medal of the N.R.S. 
Under these circumstances I submit that the purchaser had no right 
to ignore everything that had gone before, and to attach the name of his 
daughter to the Rose. His doing so appears to me, unintentionally, no 
doubt, to be a direct affront to the raisers, to the lady whose name the 
Rose properly bears, and to the N.R.S., whose medal it has received, 
and 1 am sorry to find from the report of the latter just to hand that 
they think so little of their own awards as to recognise the new title in 
the list printed on page 72, and to print the legitimate name as a secondary 
matter. 
I should like to ask. Is the Eose, which, as “ Mrs. W. J. Grant,” 
received the gold medal eligible to compete for another medal under 
a fresh name ? If not, why is that new name officially recognised by 
the Society 7—J. B. 
[We repeat that the name under which the variety was honoured 
as described is the true name of the Eose. It is the name first recog¬ 
nised and recorded, and according to established rule it ought to 
prevail.] 
A QUIET CORNER. 
Life in general, particularly to those engaged in its more active 
pursuits, now and again brings the desire to escape from it—to stand 
aside as it were for a brief space, and in quiet meditation review the 
passing procession in all its kaleidoscopic changes. This privilege is 
enjoyed according to individual views of life, and according to the stand¬ 
point from which it is viewed, whether from congenial or uncongenial 
surroundings. To those patrons of the art of gardening who seek, and 
invariably find in it, those soothing influences which make life worth 
living, gardeners are especially privileged to contribute in no small 
degree. Apart from cultural skill, prudent management, and the items 
conducive of a successful exposition of his profession, a man’s inventive 
faculties are afforded ample scope in the field of his work to enlarge the 
gratification derived from it. 
Such passing thoughts, pertaining rather to the philosophic than the 
practical, may be admissible, for the pleasures of gardening are not yet 
eclipsed by the search for profit, nor will they probably ever be so, as 
the benefits derived from this form of relaxation are heavy on the credit 
side of the balance-sheet. Coming to the more practical side of the 
question there are but few gardens which do not give facility, either 
indoors or out, for the further exercise of that “ Art which doth aid 
Nature.” The garden is a place of many corners, quiet corners too, yet 
not so according to the interpretation the text is capable of, that is, 
suggestive of repose sought for through the medium of graceful and 
appropriate surroundings. 
Apart from these considerations there are reasons worthy of this 
subject receiving some attention from those who find the architect and 
builder of some plant house or conservatory has left his—the gardener’s 
—views entirely out of the question. How often is to be found in some 
conservatory attached to a dwelling house everything desirable, save the 
one important matter, that of providing a healthy home for plants. 
Many find this a never-ending source of trouble in keeping up those 
appearances it is here of all places so necessary to maintain. Details 
of such are too well known to encroach on space. Houses in which the 
most able cultivators fail to do justice to themselves, and are unable to 
give satisfaction to their critics. Yet, it is often possible at a small 
expense, with taste and ingenuity, for the gardener to convert his 
Mte noir into a thing of beauty with a considerable lessening of the 
strain imposed on him hitherto. 
Miss Armstrong’s picture (fig. 72) is an illustration to the point in 
question, for such work obviously is suited to any house or corridor 
which may be termed ugly by reason of an obtrusive end or back 
wall. This illustration, speaking for itself, requires no explanation ; 
but, if I may be permitted to say so, would more vividly impress the 
beautiful, as here seen, if the unlovely—of which so many examples 
are frequently to be met with—could be here depicted in the same 
practical manner. Nothing so forcibly impresses the pleasing as the 
want of it, and he who has to stand the fire of criticism aligned through 
the drawing-room windows into the conservatory knows well where 
the shoe pinches. 
At first sight, with some conservatories (alluding here to those 
attached to a building), difficulties may present themselves in altering 
existing things. For instance, it may be thought desirable that damp 
soil or rockwork should not come in contact with the walls of the 
dwelling. With such difficulties I have had to deal with in the con¬ 
version—from my point of view—of an ugly conservatory into a quiet 
corner which is now generally admired by those more competent to 
judge than myself. It is not, I admit, an altogether worthy object 
in seeking to avoid trouble, but when that is of the perennial kind 
and can be abolished for good and all, then with that object alone 
it is desirable to do so. Trouble in this case meant work, a never 
ending endeavour to keep a house presentable with plants which 
was able to reduce the majority of them to a pitiable state in the 
shortest time. 
With a side wall next a reception roon it was thought well to avoid 
the possibility of damp, hence the rot kwork was built up independently 
with an intervening space. A water tap at hand suggested a fountain, 
and to this end a portable tank was utilised, and stood on the floor 
at the base of the rockwork wall and finally enclosed in the same 
material, thus making it a part and parcel of the principal erection. 
A junction with the waterpipe carries water to the top of the wall, 
whence it trickles or dashes down according to desire into the bason 
below, keeping it full, and escaping by an overflow over the marginal 
rockwork to an unseen drain. 
Seedling Ferns, Lycopodium, Begonias of the Rex type, with Ficus 
repens and Tradescantias, for which ample provision was made for 
planting, fairly revel under these conditions, and a fine Dicksonia— 
which hitherto had appeared to exist only on sufferance—now crowns 
the whole with a luxuriant canopy of fronds. So with some large 
Palms and other permanent plants, which soon showed the beneficent 
effects of the presence of water and moisture-yielding rockwork. It 
is not always desirable to let well alone, if the way is presented to 
do better and further improvement was made by abolishing all pots, 
transferring the specimen plants into tubs and covering these with 
virgin cork. Other corners in the same house were similarly treated, 
and where stone could not be employed virgin cork gave means to 
the end. 
Similar work to suit varying conditions needs not to be carried out 
on any hard and fast lines. Some idea of the floor space available for 
the foundation of it is necessary to have, then as the work proceeds it 
will be found self-suggestive. The builder may certainly, probably 
will, transgress in the ethics of expert rockwork building, in fact my 
work prior to completion provided the text for a sermon by an interested 
friend on strata, but Ferns and creepers have long since veiled those 
imperfections from inquisitive eyes. A few baskets of that charming 
pendent Fern, Gymnoeramma schizophylla gloriosa, show to advantage 
above, and an old iron garden seat, bereft of a leg, is permanently 
