316 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 20, 1894. 
Rose Show Fixtukes ix 1894. 
June IStli (Wednesday).—Colchester.f 
„ 20th (Wednesday).—Isle of Wight (Shanklin). 
,, 26th (Tuesday)—Westminster (R.H.S.). 
„ 27th (Wednesday).—Windsor (N.R.S.) and Richmond (Surrey). 
„ 28th (Thursday).—Canterbury, Eltham, and Sutton. 
„ 30th (Saturday).—Sittingbourne and Brockham. 
July 3rd (Tuesday).—Farningham, Bagshot, and Diss. 
„ 4th (Wednesday).—Croydon, Reigate, and Tunbridge Wells. 
„ 5th (Thursday).—Hereford and Norwich. 
„ 7th (Saturday).—Crystal Palace (N.R.S.) 
,, 10th (Tuesday).—Gloucester and Wolverhampton.* 
„ 11th (Wednesday).—Hitchin and King’s Lynn. 
„ 12th (Thursday).— Bath, Harleston, Woodbridge, and Worksop, 
„ 14th (Saturday).—New Brighton. 
„ 17ch (Tuesday).—Helensburgh. 
„ 19th (Thursday).—Halifax (N.R.S.)., Halesworth, and Trentham. 
„ 21st (Saturday).—Manchester. 
,, 26th (Thursday).—Southwell. 
„ 28th (Saturday).—Bedale. 
* A Show lasting three days. f A Show lasting two days. 
Any date of Rose shows, or of other horticultural exhibitions where 
Roses form a leading feature, not named above, I shall be glad to receive 
as soon as fixed, for insertion in future lists. — Edwaed Mawley, 
ItosehanJt, Berhhamsted, Herts. 
Isle of Wight Rose Show. 
We are informed that the exhibition of the Isle of Wight Rose 
Society will be held at Shanklin on June 20th. The date has been 
altered from June 13th to prevent clashing with Colchester. 
The Peospects to Exhibitoes of the Rose Season, 1894. 
In “ H., Deal's," letter to you (page 305) of last week’s issue he 
refers to the stimulating effects on exhibitors of the prospects of the 
coming Rose contests, and he ends his remarks by the very cautious 
statement that all is still “ uncertainty.” As regards the season this is 
apparently a very sensible remark even if there be no novelty in it, 
anyhow it is a cautious one! All is still uncertain as to the future, but 
I much fear the uncertainty is not as regards the earliness of the season, 
which is manifest to anyone who takes an interest in the subject of 
weather, and who does not in our world-renowned climate ? 
What is really uncertain, and what we all look forward to with fear 
and trembling, is not the season before us, but where will our Roses be 
when the Rose contests are decided ? I write on the 22nd April—a date 
when in an average year all who are exhibitors should have hardly 
anything in evidence on their Rose plants but the faintest signs of buds 
from which they hope to cut good flowers in the end of June or beginning 
of July. What is the position now? Hardly a plant which is not in 
active growth, many even with flower buds formed on shoots close on to 
a foot in length ! Unless some severe weather be ahead of us, of which 
we certainly read nothing, and the papers of late point much the other 
way, we shall have an earlier season than the unsatisfactory one of 1893, 
I do not say as bad a season as that was, because we have had cooling 
showers at a favourable time, but anyone who takes an interest in 
gardening matters must be struck with the abnormal earliness of all 
flowers. Beginning with the Chionodoxa Luciliae and cognate bulbous 
plants, which were in flower a full three weeks ahead of last year, and 
Daffodils, which with me this spring have been a disastrous failure, we 
now have all the beautiful varieties of May-flowering Tulips in full 
bloom; and Ornithogalum nutans and kindred flowers already past 
their flowering season. Paeonies, which look splendidly healthy, will be 
in flower within a fortnight, and Lilies are in rampant growth—more 
especially Liliums testaceum and candidum. I never remember the 
varieties of L. speciosum, which should flower in September or October, 
so far advanced, mine already being 18 inches high. I assume the cause 
of the extraordinary earliness of the growth of all garden subjects can 
only be ascribed to the remarkable heat of last year and the warmth of 
the present spring; but if other garden plants are showing this wonderful 
precocity, is it in the least likely that Rose plants will be backward ? 
As far as I can judge the reply must be, Certainly not. I truly fear that 
the later Rose shows will be a great failure this year, simply from the 
fact that no sensible recognition having been taken by our Rose experts 
of the chance that we may have entered into a series of warm seasons, 
the dates of important shows are later than last year ! 
Last autumn 1 called attention in one of your contemporaries to a 
very remarkable and ably written letter published by the “ Times ” from 
the greatest wine importers of the United Kingdom, which letter I 
am surprised the press did not at the time take more notice. In it 
the probable advent of a cycle of warm, and for some forms of 
horticulture, more especially Vine culture, favourable seasons was most 
ably discussed, and the possibility of another season, or seasons, similar 
to that of last year was prognosticated. What was so clearly stated in 
that letter as possible or probable seems about to be verified this year, 
and if it be 1 shall only be one of many who will regret that those respon¬ 
sible for the arrangement of our Rose meetings seem either unable “ to 
discern the signs of the times,” or wilfully to defy fate.—C haeles J. 
Geahame. 
[Owing to climatic influences there is a difficulty in fixing a date for 
the National Rose Society’s Show at the Crystal Palace to suit both 
northern and southern growers. For instance, from 1888 to 1893 
inclusive, and when *he dates were 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 2nd, and 1st of 
July respectively, southern growers secured the principal prize in the 
leading class four times, the northerners coming to the front only in 
1889 and 1893—early seasons. In 1891, the date being July 4th, some 
of the northern growers were unable to compete. It is obvious, there¬ 
fore, that the latter have no chance of exhibiting in early seasons unless 
a later date is occasionally fixed. We trust the later Rose shows this 
year will not be such “ great failures ” as our correspondent fears, 
though he is not without strong grounds for his anticipations.] 
Judging from present appearances we may reasonably look forward 
to an early and good season for Roses of all descriptions. To-day 
(April 21st) I have gathered our first bloom of the season from the 
open air. The variety was that particularly beautiful and free-flowering 
Tea, Goubault; the bloom was cut from a low south wall. Both 
Hybrids and Teas have broken wonderfully strong. The growth is clean, 
and does not seem to have been checked in the least by the recent frosts. 
This fine condition at present is doubtless due in a great measure to 
copious rains we had a week ago, which came at a time when the soil 
was thoroughly warm, and in exactly the right condition to promote 
rapid growth if thoroughly moistened. Neither maggot nor green fly 
seems to have made their appearance at present, and the imagination of 
many a Rose grower has perhaps already begun to conjure up visions of 
a wealth of queenly beauty in the times to come.—H. Dunkin. 
Me. a. Hill Geay on Tea Roses. 
Me. Alexandee Hill Geay, of Beaulieu, Weston, a famous grower 
and successful exhibitor of Tea Roses, read a paper on this subject at 
a recent meeting of the Widcombe Horticultural Club. He first 
attempted to grow Teas in the open air for seven or eight years at 
Dunkeld, in the Perthshire Highlands, and came to Bath on account of 
the more kindly disposed climate of the south-west of England. His 
experience in this neighbourhood had strengthened his opinion that, 
except where the soil is deep and heavy, the summers are too warm for 
the perfect production of Hybrid Perpetuals for exhibition purposes, 
while on the other hand it was notorious that the winters were far 
too severe to allow Teas to feel thoroughly at home. 
Therefore he felt disposed to regard from the rosarians’ point of view 
the climate of Somerset and that of the West of England generally as 
one of Nature’s half-way houses, and more fitted for the perfect 
cultivation of Hybrid Teas than either for Hybrid Perpetuals or Teas. 
Still the fact remained that without coddling the plants, but by 
supplying reasonable protection to them, we so far succeeded in 
contending with the elements, that at no Continental Rose show were 
finer Tea Roses to be seen than were annually exhibited at the leading 
shows in England. For affording protection against winter frosts his 
experience was in favour of dry Ferns or leaves for beds, and nets or 
Spruce branches for walls. In one winter mice made nests into the hay 
which protected many of his wall trees, and completely barked many 
Mar^chal Niels, but he saved all but one by pruning below the gnawed 
bark. 
Speaking of the manure used, Mr. Gray said in less than three years, 
prior to 1889, he had applied more than 1300 tons of cow, pig, and horse 
manure to his ground, to say nothing of hoof parings, brewers’ grains 
sheep manure, half-inch bones, fish guano, and crushed bones. During 
last summer he agreed to purchase a few loads of putrid horse flesh, 
with the result that upon its delivery one of his men fled in terror. He 
had dug, trenched, and worked the ground over and over again, incorpo¬ 
rating with it burnt earth, road scrapings, 150 tons of virgin soil, and 
200 tons of decayed turf. With the exception of pig manure, of which 
Roses were fond, he endeavoured to let alone too strong abominations, 
but within the last five years, in addition to the manure mentioned 
previously, 500 tons of ordinary farmyard refuse had been given to his 
trees with heavy consignments of oyster shells, finely ground down, 
burnt earth, about a dozen tons of wool waste with a much larger 
quantity of half wool half cotton waste, hoof parings, a ton of horn 
shavings, with 3 tons of feathers, lime, and soot. 
Describing the walls at Beaulieu as “royal preserves” for Teas Mr. 
Gray mentioned that all the trees on the walls are attached to wires. 
Among the varieties cultivated on the walls “ imperator primus ” stands 
Mardchal Niel. The first blooms on the walls are nearly all over by the 
10th July, although on standards, planted in shady places, Maifichal Niels 
continue to afford smaller blooms off and on through the summer. 
These standards are supported by stout posts firmly planted. To 
encourage the shooting of laterals all the most vigorous branches of the 
Marechal Niels had been bent right round and tied to supports. In 
various sheltered places Comtesse de Nadaillac had been planted on the 
walls. Another acknowledged queen was Souvenir d’Elise Varden, 
but this variety was not planted on the walls because it bloomed quite 
early enough. 
Detailing the other varieties he grows, Mr. Gray remarked that in 
The Bride we have a diamond of the first water. Marie Van Houtte 
