September JO, 189i. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
2C0 
unknown. We have fine plants which during the past few weeks have 
been a perfect maze of bloom, this making the third time they have 
flowered during the past twelve months. They are kept in 10 and 
12-inch pots full of roots, and are plunged in decayed leaves in what 
was formerly a Pine bed under which there is a slight bottom heat. 
Here they grow all the year round with an occasional supply of liquid 
manure, and are only potted when it is absolutely necessary. The 
robustness of their growth, and the great profusion of flower spikes 
which they continually throw up, is evidence enough to prove that at 
any rate the above process cannot be improved. 
Doubtless many growers are successful under the resting process, and 
will strongly advocate it; but the question that occurs to me. Is it 
advisable to follow out any theory that is not necessary to successful 
cultivation ?—G. H., Alton Towers. 
The Amateur’s Trophy Question. 
The principal reason why I think it would be a very serious 
mistake to reduce the number of varieties in the amateur champion 
class below thirty-six is that it would lessen the honour of winning 
the championship, if championship except in name, it could then be 
regarded. In the National Kose Society’s catalogue will be found 
nearly 160 different varieties of exhibition Roses. Surely it can be no 
great hardship that a competitor for the “ blue ribbon ” of the year be 
called on to stage thirty-six of these in the height of the Rose season. 
Then again, owing to our seasons being so very treacherous and the 
necessity of fixing the date of the Metropolitan Show many months in 
advance, it seems to me extremely undesirable to make the number of 
varieties too small, otherwise this coveted prize might in an exceptional 
year be won by an amateur grower of very moderate calibre whose 
garden the season and date had specially favoured. If it were a 
challenge cup for, say, twenty-four, or even twelve. Hybrid Perpetuals, 
or any prize of a like character, I should be in entire agreement with 
“ Y. B. A. Z.” (page 197), but when we come to elect, as it were, our 
amateur champion for the year it is not, I think, unreasonable to 
require of him something a little more representative of the present 
position of the queen of flowers and of modern Rose culture than a 
stand of twenty-four blooms. I suppose we shall next hear of it being 
seriously proposed to reduce the Derby course to three-quarters of a 
mile, or the amateur championship of the Thames being competed for at 
Henley instead of between Putney and Mortlake.—E. M., BerTiTiavisted, 
The National Rose Society and its Members. 
While thoroughly sympathising with the senior Secretary of the 
National Rose Society on the defaulting member difficulty, I feel at 
liberty, as I am neither a local Secretary, a member of Committee, nor 
a defaulting member, to make a few remarks on the letter sent to you. 
“ D., Deal ” (page 250), probably unconsciously, hits the blot in regard 
to his and Mr. Mawley’s position in so far as that I think they misunder¬ 
stand that position. “ D., Deal," says, “ We are . . . not well-paid 
officials.” The position of “ D., Deal," and Mr. Mawley being purely 
honorary, to my mind gives them the great advantage of leaving them 
perfectly unfettered and free to write on questions affecting the vital 
interests of our Society. This valuable position I have frequently 
pointed out to them, auvi therefore to what I now publicly say they 
cannot fairly take exception. 
The subjects of the trophy question and the multiplicity of exhibits 
have now been debated for two months in the Journal by many 
correspondents, several being amateurs of high position both socially 
and as Rose growers, without attracting a single letter from anyone 
even in semi-authority worth notice ; or to amend that statement, only 
to attract a letter which by its incompleteness forcibly called the atten¬ 
tion of your correspondent “ Y. B. A. Z,,” a letter, in fact, which made 
an assertion without any explanation. 
The statement that the Committee has received “ rough usage ” is a 
questionable one, and it may also he said that thereby hangs something 
else— i.e., does it not well deserve such treatment ? If those in authority 
“allow judgment to go by default,” they can but expect that public 
opinion will not be very favourable or in sympathy with the views 
expressed by “ D., Deal," and very naturally many will agree with the 
editorial note that there is a want of “ active interest and zeal ” in our 
affairs. I know myself, and so do others, although they do not publicly 
say so, that your remarks are only too true, as I am certain that it is 
this want of active zeal, and a quicker appreciation of the wants of 
our Society which causes us to advance so slowly, and which requires 
such letters of appeal as that of “ D., Deal" even to local secretaries 
and members of Committee 1 This appeal must now be causing com¬ 
ment wherever your Journal is read, and that I may concisely say is 
“ far and wide.”— Charles J. Grahame. 
I CANNOT but think that a great many admirers of our genial old 
friend, “ D., Deal," will read his letter on this subject, as I have, with 
great regret. What has happened ? Has he grasped in warm, loving 
embrace a bloom of Baron de Bonstetten or Her Majesty, taking it (of 
course, in the dark) for Countess of Oxford or Victor Verdier, and whilst 
smarting under the mistake “ delivered his soul ” in last week’s columns ? 
I cannot see (of course, the stupidity is my own) what the dilatory 
payment of subscriptions has to do with the number of blooms in the 
trophy class. I fail to see why this non-payment of subscription has 
been brought into court, unless it were certain that all who have 
written you on this matter were in arrears. I can vouch only for my 
own payment. Every Hon. Sec. could tell of similar experience, t 
used to know something of a man who, whilst able to pay, would never 
part with his money till the County Court compelled it. He said he 
was too busy ; but he did not love Roses, which said love should have a 
humanising and kindly influence on all of ns. 
We shall be anxious to read the tardy reply of Mr. Mawley, because 
if he cannot give us some better reasons it seems to me it is like the old 
legal defence, “ No case, abuse the plaintiff’s attorney.” 
Still, we will all rejoice that our old friend has “ delivered his soul,” 
and that it may tend to bring back to us the kindly utterances and 
pleasant words with which we have generally associated the name of 
“D., Deal."—Y. B. A. Z. 
Fashion in Roses.—Roses for the Garden. 
There is a fashion in flowers as well as in dress, and perhaps no 
better illustration of this fact could be found than in the change of 
fashion in Roses. 1 can remember when there was only one standard 
of form for a good Rose, and that was a smooth, circular, full, flat, 
round-petalled flower. Single Roses were altogether ignored, not on 
account of their transitoriness, but because they were single. But this 
state of things was not destined to endure. Notwithstanding the efforts 
of a few obstructionists the tide of fashion came silently stealing on. 
By degrees the cupped or hollow centred, the compact, the imbricated, 
the globular, came into favour, and the flat flowers fell into the back¬ 
ground ; still, for a time in all cases smoothness and circularity of 
outline were indispensable conditions. 
No amount of reasoning could induce the authorities of times not 
long gone by to admit that any other style of flower was worthy of 
cultivation; there was but one standard of excellence, and every 
novelty must bow to that or be consigned to oblivion. How many 
beautiful seedling Roses have I thrown away in the past that would be 
eagerly accepted now through this change of fashion 1 How many Rose 
gardens have I seen filled to disadvantage with the then fashionable 
flowers, giving forth only a flower now and then, when the unfashionable 
would have yielded hundreds and set the whole garden aglow 1 But the 
narrow despotism by which Nature was trammelled then has been 
broken up, and the fashion of to-day says. Let us have bright coloured, 
free blooming, free growing, sweet scented Roses for our gardens, even if 
necessarily at the expense of the idolised features of the past. 
This change of fashion would seem to be the result of increased 
knowledge and a more widely cultivated taste. Who that sets any 
value on the beauty of his garden or the brightness of his dwelling 
would now plant such Roses as A. K. Williams, Etienne Levet, Horace 
Vernet, Harrison Weir, Her Majesty, Monsieur Noman, Xavier Olibo, 
Lady Mary Fitzwilliam, Suzanna Marie Rodocanachi, Comtesse de 
Nadaillac, La Boule d’Or, Cleopatra, Souvenir d’Elise Vardon, beautiful 
as they are at the flower shows, when he had access to such kinds as 
Charles Lawson, Madame Plantier, Madame Georges Bruant, Augustine 
Guinoisseau, Caroline d’Arden, Caroline Testout, Charles Lamb, Crown 
Prince, Ella Gordon, La France, Ulrich Brunner, Souvenir de Malmaison, 
Camoens, Grace Darling, Grand Due Adolphe, Madame Falcot, Mar¬ 
quise de Salisbury, Madame Laurette Messiny, Kaiserin Augusta Vic¬ 
toria and Madame Lambard, unless his chief object was to win prizes 
at the flower shows. The former I should call florists’ Roses, the latter 
painters’ and poets’ Roses, and each have their proper purposes to 
serve. Some there are which are suitable for both purposes, but the 
number is few. It is in most cases as wasteful and injudicious to 
