July 9,1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 
25 
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grounds of the Priory on Thursday last. The competition was spirited and 
well kept up in nearly all the classes, there being six entries in the open 
forty-eights, but owing to the fixture clashing with Bath and other important 
attractions on tbs same day, and probably also to the frequently recurring 
this progress the local growers are largely indebted to the effective influence 
of the Society’s work and its liberality in offering prizes open to all England, 
and which has been this season extended by the opening of all the prizes to 
members of the Society or others without respect to residence the result 
fortunately not having brought discouragement to the Committee and their 
zealous Hon. Secs., the Revs. E. T. Carey and W. H. Gall. The latter, than 
whom there can be no more ardent devotee to the Rose, was on this occasion 
a redoubtable, although not a successful, exhibitor in the lists ; but as the 
possessor of a pure white buttonhole of the famous and costly Gloire 
Lyonnaise deserves a note of admiration. Possibly it may have been a 
sport from that dazzling gem, but although many were the conjectures as to 
the name of the stranger it remained unrecognised, all the features of the 
craved yellow H.P.being absent. Tea Roses were as usual here an important 
attraction, the Revs. Dr. Kin? and W. H. Jackson being deservedly honoured. 
Dr. King showed blooms of Souvenir de Thirese Levet, a veritable Tea of a 
dark fruity crimson colour and appearance, with stout petals, a very striking 
and distinct Rose, but too heavy in colour to harmonise with the delicate 
tints of Teas and Noisettes, the deepest tone admissible amongst these 
being the pale carmine of Madame Lambard. Mr. House had also a good 
bloom of Lanetta, a prettily shaped cream-tinted Tea, and the Hon. Edith 
Gifford appeared to advantage as an exhibition flower. Duchesse de Vallom- 
brosa has never been so fine, the present season seeming to suit it exactly ; 
on the contrary, good blooms of Alfred Colomb were few and far between. 
Heinreich Schultheis, acarminatod pink H.P., and Lady Mary Fitzwilliam, a 
fine bold flower of Mr. Bennett’s, were both well shown, the latter giving the 
impression of a cupped and improved Souvenir de la Malmaison, the foliage, 
too, having something of the Bourbon character. Mr. Laxton of Bedford 
staged a box of his pretty new blush seedling Bedford Belle, a very free- 
flowering and d'stinct new Rose, which attracted much atte ition. 
For the class of forty-eight distinct Roses, open to all England, Mr. T. 
House of Peterborough was first, having fine specimens of Yiolette Bouyer, 
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam, Mdlle. G. Luizet, Duke of Edinburgh, Merveille de 
Lyon, Emily Laxton, Charles Darwin, Ulrich Brunner, Duke of Teck, Prince 
Camille de Rohan, and Catherine Bel), a nice-looking H.P., intermediate in 
colour and appearance between John Hopper and Coupe d’Hbbd. Mr. 
Atherton of the Nurseries, Chatteris, was creditably second, and closely 
Fig. 5. —Cymbedium Lowianum. (See page 2?.) 
cold nights of the previous period of ten days, some strong battalions were 
not able to show their colours. The Roses, although not including such 
dashing blooms as those shown by Mr. House last year, were, however, on 
the whole generally of a higher standard and much more even than at any 
of the previous shows at Hitchin, the staging, too, being greatly in advance 
of the primitive attempts formerly noticeable here at the early shows. For 
