August 7. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION. 
327 
all along that those gardeners who subscribed most to 
the funds of the Institution had the best claim for 
election, and I regretted, only three years since, that 
there was no rule by which subscribers should take 
preference at elections; but I have altered my mind, on 
further consideration, and now my conviction is, that I 
was formerly in the wrong. 
If it is urged that I ought, on principle, to hold on to 
the end of the chapter without a change, I must urge, 
in return, that in that case principle would only be a 
softer name for obstinacy. The claims of every can¬ 
didate are, first of all, well sifted and made out by the 
committee, before the name is entered on the list of 
applicants, and every candidate is an object for charity; 
but if my former ideas were in force, none of them had 
a chance of election, except such as had subscribed to 
the funds; then it was no charity at all, but a mutual 
benefit society, in which voting were of little use, as 
the oldest subscriber would have the first chance, and 
so on, till the vacancies were filled up. Now, the 
country abounds with such benefit societies, but no one, 
or but very few persons, ever think of subscribing to 
any of them, except the actual members; and so we 
should soon find it in this, with the insuperable diffi¬ 
culty, which is not common to any other benefit society, 
that we are scattered all over the country, and cannot 
meet to put our “ heads together ” for any good. In¬ 
deed, I am so convinced that a benefit society among 
gardeners is impracticable, and could do no good, that 
I would stop my subscription to-morrow, if the Bene¬ 
volent Institution were turned into that form ; and yet I 
was of a contrary opinion so late as three years back. 
Then, as to the charge that voting goes by favour in 
electing pensioners. How should they go but by 
favour ? I cannot see any other way than favour, and 
very strong favour too. Here is a list of twelve persons, 
every one of them is an object of charity ; but eight out 
of the twelve are strangers to all, except, say forty of 
the subscribers ; then, if “ charity begins at home,” do 
you think that I, or any of the subscribers, will vote 
for A. whom I never heard of before, in preference to 
B. whom I have known many years ? Or, if I do not 
know A. or B., if 0., one of my fellow - subscribers 
canvasses my vote for either of them, surely I ought to 
give him my vote before I would give it to a stranger ? 
That is just the way all such voting and canvassing go 
in this country; and to my own personal knowledge, the 
voting and canvassing in our Institution are less liable 
to undue influence than any, or at least many, of the 
large charitable institutions in England. 
What would you think of buying votes to insure an 
election to a good charity? Surely nothing could be on 
a worse footing. Yet it is done every year since the 
last war. I, for one, bought 400 votes in one day, at one 
of the best conducted charities in England, and I have 
the receipt now in the house from a paid clerk of that 
charity, but I lost the election. I have seen a thousand 
pounds paid and receipted for at some of these charity 
elections; but you cannot buy a single vote at our 
charity. 
Now, as to Mr. Blair getting in at our last election. I 
can account for that very easily. He was a popular 1 
man among gardeners, and his name, as the raiser of one 
of our very best Pillar Roses, went a good way towards 
obtaining votes for him. But he might have raised all 
the best Roses in the catalogue, without telling in his 
favour, if he had been a bad man, or a man who cared 
for no one but himself when he had the chance; so that 
voting is a great inducement to good, upright conduct 
in our society, and I would encourage everything which 
tended to improve us as a body, or as single individuals. 
Moreover, I would earnestly ask those who are able to 
help the poor frozen-out gardeners. Meantime, I shall 
help you to understand the proper management of Rose 
Blairii, and such-like, after telling you that Mr. Blair 
is a perfect stranger to me ; at least, I never have seen 
him but once, and that in April, 1829, so that I do not 
favour him more than any one else in his position. 
ROSE BLAIRII No. 2. 
It is hardly fifteen years since it was received as a 
fixed law, that if you prune the Banksian Roses at any 
time in the year, except at the end of May or beginning 
of June, when their flowers are over for the season, you 
deprive them of the power of flowering during the 
following May. Happily there is now no appeal from 
this decision, and any infraction of the rule is sure to 
bring more or less disappointment. For full ten years 
later, it was the maxim with Rose-growers, that all 
other Roses ought to have the yearly pruning sometime 
between October and April; some earlier and some 
later, according to the views of the different managers, 
or the kind of Rose to be pruned. Then it was that 
The Cottage Gardener stepped in and propounded a 
new doctrine, that a certain class of Roses ought to be 
yearly pruned at the end of July, and at no other time. 
These were the strong-growing Hybrid Climbers, of 
which Blairii No. 2. is the most known. 
No sooner said than done; some of the first Rose 
authorities subscribed to this plan at once, and in less 
than six years we find this class of Roses under a new 
system of pruning—summer pruning just as they are 
gone out of bloom for the season—or an extension of the 
principle on which the Banksians have done so well. 
Some of the reasons which have led to this change may 
be thus briefly stated. 
This class of Roses produce very strong wood ; 
middling wood, that is, half strong wood; and weak 
shoots. At the winter pruning, if the very strong wood 
was cut in one-third of its length; these shoots made 
still stronger wood next year, and produced less bloom 
than before; the next sized shoots were thus too much 
crowded, and their strength and flowering were injured 
in proportion, till, at last, two-tliirds of a season’s 
growth, or two out of every three shoots w r ere too weak 
to flower at all, and not only that, but in a few more 
years began to wear out altogether, leaving naked 
I bottoms. We are partly in this transition state at pre¬ 
sent; that is, those of us who neglected to take advantage 
of the new mode of summer pruning are having our 
strong Roses getting bare below, and more bare, year 
by year, while the over-luxuriant growths are receiving 
proportionable additions of strength, and failing to 
bloom exactly in the same ratio as they thus increase 
in strength. I think it was in the summer of 1852, 
that I stated particulars about a Blairii Rose under 
this treatment, which I undertook to restore to its wonted 
bloom, after failing for some years to produce anything 
like a good bloom, and at last no bloom at all; there 
was hardly a leaf on it as far as I could reach up 
against the wall; the middle, higher up, was not far 
amiss, but the top was too strong to flower. 
Here, you see, there were two evils to get rid of, and 
cure, if possible—to bring this Rose first to a balance of 
growth all over it, and to restore it to a free-flowering 
condition as soon as could be done. Which of the two 
would you attempt first? Many would say, let us first 
have a good bloom, and we shall balance accounts soon 
enough ; but that is not the right way. A “ sick man ” 
ought to be “ set on his legs” before you ask him to 
walk ; and so it is with these Roses ; if you want them 
perfect from top to bottom, the first thing is to get the 
whole growth all ovor the surface, to be as near as is 
possible of equal strength then to it, so as to keep it 
thin for the future, and flowers will come, as it were, “ of 
themselves.” That was just what I had done, and you 
never saw a better bloom of Roses than that Blairii 
Rose produced this last July; and I am perfectly sure 
