104 
TIIE FLORIST. 
Let me arraign the nurserymen and amateurs (?); and what answer 
will they make to the charges which I prefer against them before the 
following select jury of Roses :—Coupe d’Hebe, Old, Kean, Paul Ricaut, 
Cloth of Gold, Prince Leon, William Griffiths, Geant des Batailles, 
Mrs. Rivers, Madame Vidot, Madame Laffay, Jules Margottin, and 
Louise Peyronnet. Here is a jury of first-rate Roses, and what answer 
will the prisoners make to the jury, who, if they could be, would be the 
prosecutors. The charges against you, nurserymen, are, that you bud 
some Roses on stocks which you see are bad ; that you bury your 
stocks deep, and rot or sodden the rind, which was put there for some 
wise purpose; that you advertise Bourbons on high standards, which, 
as a class, are not fit for them, with the exceptions of Bouquet de Flore, 
The Queen, Paxton, Dupetit Thouars, and perhaps Acidalie (she is 
best as a pole Rose) ; that you advertise a new Rose as decidedly the 
gem of the year, whereas, perhaps, you have never yet seen it; that you 
send out Roses that start late the year they are budded, and are dwindled 
in wood ; and lastly, and worse than all, that from carelessness or press 
of business, your man, in executing an order, gives one deep dig in 
stiff soil with a spade, then a tooth-drawing lift, and then a final wrench 
with both hands: the immediate effect of this is that the Rose tree 
deteriorates, does little, or dies. From stating this objection to Mr. 
Tiley, it is due to say that out of a hundred Roses sent me this year, 
there are but six I could object to in head or root. These charges are 
not preferred against any particular nurseryman—they are more or less 
the faults of the class; and to the second and last indictment may be 
traced, as far as nurserymen are chargeable, the future disappointment 
of Rose amateurs. 
And now let us proceed to charges against the Rose grower (wrongly 
yclept amateur). Copying the previous deep planting of nurserymen, 
and forgetting that “ Nature never was a sexton,” you also bury your 
Rose tree rather than plant it. Had there been no spades, the rind 
would never have been buried underground. The very life of a tree is 
its surface roots, and its flower-bearing capacities depend upon them. 
Perpendicular roots may send wood, but the surface roots make and 
perfect the flower. This is precisely the case with Strawberries. 
Listen to the following extract from Richlieu’s treatise, which I luckily 
fell in with when I first began :—“ When the tree is planted, the top 
of the root must be pretty close to the top of the ground ; there must be 
none of the stump or stem buried; and when trodden down the root 
must be fixed steady and solid. We have seen a group of standards 
planted by a French Rose-grower, and because the stems were not 
sufficiently uniform to do by ordinary planting, he sunk some of them 
nearly a foot into the ground, while others were kept at the full height. 
They all lived after a fashion through the summer, but bloomed weakly 
or not at all; and before the next spring many of the sunk ones died, 
the stems being soddened and wet from the crown of the root to the 
place which was above ground.” 
The second charge against you is, that when you plant a Rose from 
the dealers, thinking that you cannot have too much of a good thing, 
you do not sufficiently cut down the head to meet the roots, which even 
