December 5, 1889. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
491 
smoothness of petal, fulness of centre, shape, colour, lasting qualities 
and size, a lack of freedom of bloom, or of good qualities in the autumn ; 
and in Teas, besides a mnch increased impatience of rain, there is the 
peculiar fault of several, and, alas 1 some of the best, of not bringing 
blooms to full perfection when grown as dwarf plants. We know.how- 
•ever, that many Boses behave very differently according to the soil, the 
•climate, the situation, and the treatment ; and I hope, therefore, that 
any readers of the Journal who do not agree with my descriptions will 
write and say so, that we may have a better knowledge of the actual 
capabilities of the several varieties. 
Hybbid Perpetuals. 
Abel Carriers (Yerdier, 1875).—Of uncertain growth. Often makes 
strong secondary shoots, yet refuses to grow strong in the spring. 
Foliage second-rate ; rather liable to mildew and orange fungus, but 
can stand a little rain. Often “comes” bad; not divided, but mal¬ 
formed, and “ anyhow; ” a small per-centage only of the blooms 
generally arrive at perfection. Not particularly good in petal; but 
the shape, partly imbricated, is good when you get it. Beautiful 
colour, among the darkest ; a fair bloom to last, and not of the largest 
size. Like many of the dark Eoses, it requires hot dull dry weather, 
for sun will cause the colour to “ burn ”— i.e., turn brown, and rain is 
more or less hurtful to all Eoses. Not good as a free bloomer or as an 
autumnal Eose. 
Abel Grand (Damaizin, 1865).—A useful garden Eose of very strong 
stiff hardy growth and fine foliage. Not liable to mildew or to sufEer much 
from rain. Flat open shape, soon becoming weak in the centre ; thin 
petals, not lasting, good size, strong of constitution, and will do well in 
lightish soil; very good in freedom of bloom and as an autumnal. Has 
■“sported” once or twice. “Bessie Johnson" is identical, except that 
the colour is lighter. 
Alfred Colomb (Lacharme, 1865).—Fine growth and foliage in good 
soil, but not on poor or light land. Not very liable to mildew, and can 
stand some rain. Generally comes good, but occasionally “ divided.” 
(I ought perhaps here to mention that the term “divided” is used 
when a rift appears in the outline of the centre or point. This seriously 
mars the bloom to a florist’s eye, and from a show point of view. No 
■‘■'dressing” can counteract it, or so fold the petals as to hide it. In 
the worst cases four such rifts appear, and the bloom is then said to be 
“quartered.”) A fine typical shape, what the N.E.S. catalogue calls 
“ globular, high centre,” which is a good description of this particular 
Eose in its perfection ; extremely good in petal, centre, size, lasting 
qualities and colour. A first-class show Eose, late, fragrant, free in 
bloom, and good as an autumnal, with clean, smooth-skinned, handsome 
wood, striking well as a cutting. The flowers are often very like Marie 
Baumann, though the wood and habit of the plants are very different. 
Benoit Comte and Marshal P. Wilder are also similar in bloom, though 
the foliage of the former is very distinct. Comtesse de Casteja (Mar- 
gottin, 1882), which I have not personally grown, is the only seedling of 
this fine Eose that I know. 
Alfred K Williams (Schwartz, 1877).—Makes long strong shoots as a 
maiden or as a cut-back at times on good soil, but has not a strong con¬ 
stitution. Thorny, with good foliage, liable to mildew, but will stand some 
rain. A Eose of great reputation, because the blooms nearly always come 
perfect, forming first-class examples of the popular “ imbricated” shape 
—(i.e., something after the form of a Camellia). Not a very good one 
to last, or of the largest size, but prominent as a show Eose. Cannot be 
-called first-class as a free bloomer, but is pretty good as an autumnal. 
The plants are not hardy or long-lived, and fresh ones should be budded 
«very year, as though some do well as cutbacks, maidens are more to be 
depended upon. Grand Mogul is said to be a seedling from this beautiful 
Eose. 
Annie Laxton (Laxton, 1869).—A good hardy garden Eose, with good 
growth, very fine foliage, and strong constitution. Not liable to mildew 
or much injured by rain. Useful as an early one, a free bloomer and 
fair autumnal. The blooms are of fair size, but not often of a good 
regular shape, and the petals are somewhat thin.—W. E. Eaillem. 
(To be continued.) 
BULLFINCHES. 
If “ J. T. E.” (page 476) expects to catch bullfinches now on the 
trap-cage principle, I am afraid he will be disappointed, as I have only 
caught one in a fortnight, making a total of thirty-eight in a few 
weeks. Now they pay very little attention to the call of a decoy, and 
-every week they will become more careless. If I were inclined to 
catch more I would use birdlime, but this, to a certain extent, means 
turning out with a call bird and a stock-cage to put fresh caught birds 
in, as described by me before. 
In the extract printed from the Worcester Herald (page 459), Miss 
Ormerod, in reply to some of my remarks in a previous issue of that 
journal, appears to doubt to some extent the mischief these birds do by 
the following remark :—“ I do not myself feel so sure as some writers 
that the bullfinch is so very injurious, and would much like that, before 
condemning him, a careful post-mortem of contents of stomachs of a 
few specimens should be made, to see whether the abstracted buds had, 
or had not, a maggot within them.” I assure that lady, and all readers, 
that I am not in the habit of writing anything that I cannot sub¬ 
stantiate, and I have watched these birds most carefully in their work 
of destruction, and that they take every bloom bud within reach indis¬ 
criminately, and that a single bird will nip out twenty-five buds per 
minute (by my watch), discarding all outside, and swallow only the 
flower and fruit in embryo. The stomachs I have frequently examined 
with a magnifying glass, and have one lying before me now that I 
have used as an illustration at many lectures on horticulturists’ 
enemies. If time and space permitted, I should have been pleased to 
have made a few remarks re “ Caterpillar Plague” (page 459). I have 
taken thousands of the moths on grease-bands, and other ways ; but 
I have patented what I consider an improvement on any method yet 
invented in stopping the moths and other pests to fruit growers.— 
J. Hiam, Astwood Sank. 
NORTH AMERICAN SHRUBS. 
The first warm days of April invite us to the woods in search of the 
Arbutus ; a glimpse of green rewards our expectant eyes, and we move 
the leaves carefully from the gnarled and twisted Oak roots, only to find 
tiny clusters of buds with no gleam of pearly white or rosy pink among 
the glossy leaves ; we turn away disappointed and look down the hill¬ 
side toward the meadow, and lo, a bush all covered in creamy, dainty 
blossoms greets us. We step carefully over the patches of Ilepatica 
and Erythronium just peeping out of the moist clayey soil, and try to 
break off the slender, grey, smooth twigs, and we twist and pull and 
bend in vain ; truly it might be called rubber instead of Leather Wood, 
this fairy blossomed Dirca, the earliest flower of our New England 
woods. The Houstonia only is brave enough to lift her pale blue face 
in the warmest and sunniest meadows, and the Saxifrage is trying to 
bloom in the sunny crevices of the rocks. But the sun mounts higher, 
day by day, and the Andromeda, in the swamps, hangs out her thou¬ 
sands of nearly bells to lure the bees, and the Alder tags shake their 
golden pollen on the pale green sphagnum at their roots. Here and 
there, in the woods and in the thickets along the river banks, the snowy 
flowers of the Amelanchier, or Shadblow, unfold in a night, the petals 
of one species faintly tinted with pink. Hardly a leaf has yet un¬ 
folded, but one by one the delicate translucent petals float off seemingly 
like snow-flakes through the air, and the bush stands forth clad in 
emerald green, many a leaf with crimson veins and margins which dis¬ 
appear as it attains its full size. 
The warm days of May come swiftly, and the beautiful flowering 
Dogwood, Cornus florida, flings forth its banners to the sunshine, every 
great, white, four-petalled involucre looking straight upward as if proud 
of its clusters of greenish yellow flowers, which no one notices ; irre¬ 
gular, of course, it is, whoever saw one that did not have two large and 
two smaller petals, making the blossom oval instead of round ? Then 
that brown, shrivelled spot, with a dash of crimson in it that is always 
on the margin of each petal, and is not an imperfection, as it seems, 
but an individuality. In New England we have Cornus alternifolia, 
with its loose cymes of pale buff flowers; Cornus sericea, with dull 
purplish branches, and young shoots of dark red ; Cornus paniculata, 
with grey bark and flowers in cone-like cymes and nearly white ; Cornus 
stnlonifera, which sends out horizontal branches, and whose flat cymes 
of yellowish flowers are in pleasing contrast to the velvety green, full 
grown leaves. These species of Cornus are all hardy, bear transplanting 
well, and without exception very ornamental. 
Scattered about on the hillsides, and more especially towards the 
coast, throughout New England, are the Barberry bushes, every leaf 
bristling with sharp points, but fragrant drooping clusters of yellow 
flowers in June, succeeded by oblong berries in September, which good 
housekeepers make into jelly. Another shrub, which is known by its 
glossy, very dark green leaves, is the Prickly Ash. Its inconspicuous 
greenish flowers appear about the 1st of May, before the leaves. Its 
numerous brown prickles make it well adapted for hedges. It grows 
rapidly, and its roots penetrate the ground for a long distance. _ 
Everyone knows the common Sumac, with its yellowish-green 
panicles of flowers in June, and its cone-like heads of scarlet berries in 
early autumn. One of our largest shrubs, growing when standing alone 
to a height of 20 or more feet, its greyish, woolly-looking branches 
crowned with its spreading, palm-like mass of foliage, bright light green 
in summer, and blazing scarlet in autumn, making it always con¬ 
spicuous, especially when growing in masses, as it generally does. Here 
and there, in patches in the swamps, grows the shrub called Poison 
Sumac, with its disagreeable odour, and easily distinguished by its red, 
wingless petioles, and its smooth, greenish-yellow berries. Ehus Toxico¬ 
dendron, or Poison Oak, is a weak shrub with brownish grey berries, and 
is not noticed as often as Ehus radicans, or the climbing species, which 
is usually called Poison Ivy, and is very often taken for Virginia 
Creeper, but from which it may be distinguished by its three leaflets, 
the lower one nearly always differing from the other two ; its leaves 
are dark and shining, frequently tinged with red, and in early autumn 
it takes on very brilliant hues of gold and flame ; its berries are white ; 
its small, greenish flowers appear in May. 
In hilly woods we sometimes find the Maple Bush, Acer spicatum, 
with its pretty clusters of greenish flowers, light grey bark, and coarse, 
sharply pointed leaves, which are both three and five lobed in the same 
bush. We seldom notice the twining shrub or climber called Climbing 
Bittersweet, Celastrus scandens, during the summer, as it is generally 
hidden amongst the foliage of the trees in the edges of the woods, but 
after frost its clusters of scarlet seed vessels, nestled in the three-sepailecf, 
orange calyx, are quickly seen and gathered to brighten the Christmas 
