412 
JOURNAL OF HORTIGULTUIIE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 1,1894. 
flowers much resembling Madame Martha in the late sorts. It grows 
about 3 feet high, with very spare foliage, and masses of white flowers 
borne on long sprays. The flowers measure about inches across. It 
was raised by the Messrs. Cannell of Swanley, and blooms in September. 
1 consider it the best white early Pompon up to this time. 
Edith Syratt is a most profuse September blooming variety, magenta 
coloured, leflexed flower to 3 inches across. Fine open, spare habit ; 
one of the best of its colour up to date. Kaised by Mr. H. J. Jones of 
Lewisham. 
Ivy Elphic is a dwarf, stout Japanese, growing 20 to 24 inches high, 
pink mauve in colour with white base to petals. Flowers 3 to 3^ inches 
across. Blooms in September. Raised by myself. 
Golden Shower, fine yellow Pompon; grows 2J feet high ; flowers 
2 inches across. Blooms in September in neat sprays useful for cutting. 
Raised by Mr. Owen. 
Of the new October or semi-early sorts perhaps the most notable is 
General Hawks. This is a robust grower, from 4 to 5 feet high; 
Japanese. It is a profuse bloomer, of a purplish crimson colour, with 
flowers about 4 inches across—that is, as all the others I describe, 
without any of the buds taken off but allowed to grow naturally. 
Edwin Rowbottom is a yellow, straight petalled, large Pompon. It 
grows 3 feet high, with a very slender habit, and bears a large mass of 
flowers ; thus, it is rather difficult to keep up, but is not so objectionable 
in that respect if grown as a disbudded plant, when the flowers grow 
4 or more inches across, and even when all the buds are left on it 
has the power to develop all of them into fair flowers from 2 to 3 inches 
across. 
Of the older sorts of last season I may say that there has been some 
little discussion as to the merits of Lady Fitzwygram. It has been said 
that grown in the open ground it is like Madame Desgrange, and so it is 
in some places, but really as an open-air naturally grown plant it is 
hardly worth growing. It is as a disbudded plant flowered under glass 
that it is of service. I have seen some plants treated thus and the effect 
was beautiful, for the centre petals incurve over the middle of the 
flower, presenting there a perfectly white face, which Madame Desgrange 
rarely if ever does. Thus it makes its appearance in the London shops 
as one of the first and best white Chrysanthemums. 
Another of last season’s is Madame Marie Masse. It has justified all 
the good opinion I formed of it. It is one of the best very early 
sorts, quite second to Gustave Grunerwald and much more robust than 
that. It is probable it will be several seasons before we find a better in 
its line. Gloire de Mezin is another that quite comes up to the experience 
of the season of 1893. It is a most excellent variety. 
There are many new sorts in view for trial next season, so there is 
every evidence of future progress. I have this year raised about sixty 
plants from seed that I grew last season of an October blooming semi¬ 
double seedling, which was a light bronze rather over 3 feet high. The 
seedlings from this are, if anything, more wonderful than my former 
experiences. In colour they range from pure white to deep crimson, and 
from a foot or 18 inches to 4 or 5 feet high, with a wonderful diversity 
of habit and foliage, with two or three among them of considerable 
merit and fit to grow for the future, being very early, and probably 
earlier next season.—W. Piercy. 
Rose Captain Hayward. 
I DO not find the name of this Rose mentioned by any of your corre¬ 
spondents as being one of the best of our garden Roses. With me it 
has proved thoroughly perpetual, and is still blooming, in fact the 
bushes have been a blaze of colour nearly all the season. Whether it 
makes as good an exhibition flower I am not in a position to say, for I 
have not disbudded a single plant, but allowed the clusters of five, six, 
and seven Roses to develop. The blooms I have seen at exhibitions this 
season struck me as being rather thin in petal. It is an excellent button¬ 
hole Rose, the pointed buds being almost ideal in this respect. I can 
fully concur in all Mr. C. J. Grahame has said in praise of Viscountess 
Folkestone, it is indeed a charming garden Rose.—J. B. Riding. 
Rose Analysis. 
Last week I made an attempt to reply to the criticisms of 
Mr. Grahame and “ Y. B. A. Z.” which appeared on pages 368 and 369, 
but found it difficult to know where to commence, there seemed really 
nothing definite to answer. But still I felt that as they had paid me 
the compliment of devoting considerable space to their criticisms, a 
reply of some sort was at all events due to them. At last, when too late 
for the next number, I wrote as follows: “ If Mr. Grahame or 
‘ Y. B. A. Z.’ will only state in definite terms what they object to in my 
analysis, and why they consider it does not give the relative positions of 
the different varieties with sufficient accuracy, I will do my best to 
answer their objections. I shall also be only too glad to receive and 
carefully consider any suggestions for the improvement of this analysis 
that they may kindly offer. For instance, the hint thrown out by 
Y. B. A. Z.’ as to the positions accorded varieties which follow those 
having equal averages is, in my opinion, one well worth reconsideration.” 
Since then another letter from Mr. Grahame has appeared, in which 
he asks for a clearer explanation of the methods adopted in arriving at 
the positions of the different varieties in the tables. I described the 
principles by which I had been guided last year, but by giving 
illustrations of how each of these work out in practice, my extremely 
simple methods will no doubt be more clearly understood. These 
explanations I will give in a future number.—B. M., Berlilmmpsted. 
National Rose Society—The Trophy Class. 
Mr. Grahame says (page 392) that I have misquoted him 
(page 368). I made no quotation at all. If I had done so I should have 
used inverted commas. Without them it is generally understood that 
the general sense is given without the actual words. His actual words 
(page 338) are, “ These gentlemen (“ W. R. R.” and “ B. M.”) take a 
very decided undecided attitude, as they ' entirely agree ’ with each 
other, and neither says what he is for.” My words (page 368) are, 
“ Mr. Grahame complains that I am undecided, and that ‘ E. M.’ and I 
will not say what we want.” 
If Mr. Grahame did not mean “ what we want ” by “ what we are 
for,” I am utterly at a loss to know what he did mean. Can he or 
anyone else tell us ? I certainly thought I was accurately giving his 
meaning, and am much surprised to find myself accused of misquotation, 
unfairness, sophistry, and evasion ! I leave the just allotment of these 
epithets with confidence in the hands of the readers of the Journal, and 
must decline to write any more upon the subject, a course I always take 
when my opponent descends to personalities.—W. R. Raillem. 
The Rose Season of 1894. 
Before the rush of the Chrysanthemum season comes upon us with 
all its violence, I want to say something about the past Rose season and 
all its ups and downs. I shall not venture upon vexed and disputed 
questions, dates of shows, and such like things, but merely record what 
are my own impressions of the season of 1894. My experience has not 
been so wide and so varied as it used to be, and I hardly think that many 
will wonder at this. The journeys that I used to take, and the night 
marches that I had to make, do not very well agree with the record of 
seventy-six years, and I have therefore had but few opportunities, 
comparatively speaking, of visiting exhibitions ; moreover, the services 
of what I may call professional judges are not now so much sought 
after as formerly. 
The National Rose Society has been the means of raising up and, so 
to speak, training a number of men in all parts of the country who are 
more or less qualified to assume the office of judge, and consequently 
their services come into requisition in the various localities in which 
they reside. I am not at all sure that the plan which is adopted 
by the N.R.S. for their large shows is at all suitable for small ones, and 
that in many cases would it not be better to have judges from a distance 
than to entrust the duty to exhibitors ? They may be as impartial as 
possible, but defeated exhibitors will, as I very often see, be ready to lay 
that result to the bias of the judge rather than to the deficiency of their 
flowers. I do not think that a judge ought under any circumstances to 
see the flowers on which he is to adjudicate before he commences his 
work, still less to know to whom they belong, and in small shows this is 
hardly possible. 
What shall I say concerning the Rose season ? Well, just this : that 
in whatever way we look at it, whether from a gardener’s or exhibitor’s 
point of view, it was one of the most disappointing ones on record. 
1893 was a disappointing one, but not so much so as 1894. In the 
former year the drought which set in early in March and continued on 
without a break until July left no room for illusion among growers. 
By the end of April already they felt they were in evil case, and they 
knew that if they were cast in the southern part of the kingdom 
their hopes of success were gone. But not so in 1894 ; the weather of 
January and February was of the normal character, and when we 
experienced the fine weather of March and April the hopes of growers 
were raised high as to their prospects ; and there was but one 
breaker ahead—the possibility of frost. We have for many years 
experienced what is called the cold wave between the 19th and 25th 
of May, and writing to a friend who bad said at the end of April 
“ We have had no frost yet,” I replied, “ 1 do not fear the April frost, but 
that of the 20th of May,” and on that very day the most terrible frost 
that we had experienced for manv years swooped down upon our Rose 
gar lens; it was the more dfstructive from the fact that the Roses 
were so much more forward than u ual. Had they not been so the 
shoots would not have so entirely succumbed, and recuperation would 
have been quicker. Of course, as in all frosts, there was a capriciousnesu 
about it for which we cannot account; my own garden, for instance, 
was entirely unaffected by it, while many in the fame parish were very 
severely hit, but it extended all over the country, and growers, both 
north and south, suffered severely. It was not as in 1893, when the 
running was all in the north, for Yorkshire suffered as much as 
Hertfordshire, and the drier soil and climate of East Anglia gave the 
growers there such a chance as they are not likely to have perhaps 
again. 
The result of all this was a dead level of mediocrity in most of the 
flowers staged. I do not of course mean to say that there were no really 
fine flowers, for this there will always be when they have to be selected 
from such varying localities and under such different conditions, but 
that this was the general condition of the flowers exhibited has been 
