COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
August 21. 
~v 
379 
mlnot might get up to ten or twelve feet, in eight or nine 
years, and perhaps a little higher. The rest cannot he 
depended on to rise above ten feet high in a life-time. 
You must use fast-growing Noisettes, and hud others on 
them, beginning at six or eight feet from the ground, and 
use your present selection for covering the bottom. There 
is no other way that you can manage. Noisette le Riche 
would soon reach the top, and is one of the oldest and 
hardiest. Jamie Desprez is another, and a better one to 
take buds. Fellenbenj is the best crimson among Noisettes, 
is a fast grower, and tolerable good to bud on. Solfaterre is 
very strong, and all the strong Bourbon Roses do on it just 
as well as on their own roots; and most other Roses, no 
doubt, but we have not seen them tried. Why not try one 
of the Cloth of Gold ? It has done well in some places, 
where plenty of room is allowed, and it is a famous one to 
take buds, or, at least, to hold them good for a length of 
time; but to manage a high wall of Roses by extra bud¬ 
ding is a different art, and requires constant attention to 
see that none get too much power. With those who under¬ 
stand Roses well, and have time to attend to them properly, 
there is no better way of making a great show in a small 
space.] 
WHAT IS A NEWLY-INTRODUCED PLANT? 
PRIZES FOR SEEDLINGS.—ARRANGEMENT OF 
PLANTS EXHIBITED. 
“ Will you oblige me by answering the following ques¬ 
tions, for the satisfaction of persons interested in, but igno¬ 
rant of, floriculture ? 
1. “ If a prize were offered for a newly-introduced plant, 
and none other than Cissus discolor were exhibited, would 
it be right to withhold the prize from it, because it 
was not in bloom? No condition having been expressed 
in the schedule of prizes that the plants in this particular 
class were to be in bloom ; and this plant not having been 
exhibited at any of the Society’s previous exhibitions.” 
[Cissas discolor has never been exhibited for its flowers, 
and never will be, for this reason, that they are no better 
than Nettle flowers. If Cissus discolor has been grown in 
the island of Jersey two years running, without being ex¬ 
hibited for a prize, and some one enters it as a new plant, 
say this season, it would not be entitled to a prize for 
novelty. Or say, a new plant is common round London 
for a year or two before any one thinks of showing it; but 
that does not render it a new plant at the time of showing. 
But, on the other hand, a plant may have been in the country 
for years, and from its being extremely difficult to grow, or 
increase, it should have a prize the first time it was ex¬ 
hibited. Aynostus (now Stenocurpus) Cunnimjhami is a plant 
in point. If we recollect rightly, it was twenty years old, or 
in cultivation, before it was exhibited; yet it had a prize. 
The truth of your story, however, is this;—the committee 
made a blunder in the schedule, in not specifying whether 
new plants were or were not to be in flower.] 
2. “If a prize for a newly-introduced bulb were offered, 
and a specimen-plant, beautifully in bloom, of Mill a biflora 
were exhibited, would it be consistent with justice, and 
common honesty, to withhold it, because it was the only one 
exhibited ? ” 
[“ Common justice” is, or ought to be, blind, and “ common 
honesty ” could not, therefore, give a prize for MUla biflora 
as a new bulb ; because Alii la biflora is a very good and 
very old bulb indeed ; and, besides, would flower in an open 
border better than in a pot. It is not a pot-bulb at all; 
particularly in Jersey.] 
3. “ Is it fair to withhold the prizes offered for seedling 
flowers when they arc produced according to schedule? And 
must seedling flowers, of necessity, be preferable to any 
varieties of their species in cultivation, to be prize-worthy ? ” 
[You do not state this question clearly enough. Your 
meaning seems to us to be this—Are seedlings worth a 
prize if better .seedlings of tire same plants are already in 
cultivation ? A seedling is not worth a prize-button if it is 
not better than all the varieties or seedlings of the same 
giant in cultivation. You might spend a fortune raising 
seedlings of “ all sorts,” and yet not one of the lot, or 
the whole lot together, be worthy of the smallest prize. 
Not seedlings, as such, but superior varieties, are con¬ 
templated in these offers for improving.] 
4. “ Is it considered characteristic of good taste to decorate 
a stand of plants, by suspending Ferns and Orchidaceous 
plants on a branch of a tree in the midst of it ? and should 
a stand so garnished be decorated with a prize, in preference 
to a stand containing superior plants arranged in the usual 
style ?— Amicus, Jersey." 
[It is good taste to exhibit Orchids and Ferns suspended 
as you say; but that degree of taste should not qualify the 
plants, so exhibited, for a prize, over similar plants which 
were better grown and in better bloom. If two such collec¬ 
tions were of equal merit in growth and bloom, the suspended 
collection would take the first prize, if the arrangement was 
considered to be very tastefully done. A man of no taste 
might spoil a good collection of Orchids by his clumsy way 
of suspending them. Very many Orchids should never be 
exhibited, except dangling in the air, as it were.] 
As we feel quite at home, we shall make no apologies; 
and without pretending to an over-weening confidence 
in our position, we shall just keep on as we left off. 
Last week we bid you adieu in the Poultry Chronicle; 
this week we welcome you to The Cottaoe Gardener. 
We trust we shall not be deemed presumptuous. We 
do not use this tone to all, but to those who have been 
with us during the last eighteen months. 
There is no such thing as equality, not even in 
writing; we may be smiled upon when we are “ i’ the 
vein;” we may be read attentively when by accident 
we have been instructive; it is possible—alas! that it 
should be—that we have been pooh! pooli’d! when 
prosy and below the mark. 
A simile is not, perhaps, less striking, because familiar 
and homoly. We will then say for our introduction, as 
Mr. Merriman has said time immemorial, in circuses 
and at fairs, “ Here we are again,” and “ still harping ” 
on our Poultry. 
In our old place, we left off about “ Cups at exhibitions,” 
and wo would resume the subject, as we do not yet 
believe it is thoroughly understood. 
Where the funds will admit of it, we are advocates 
for a cup for every breed. We dare not touch on a few 
pieces of plate for the principal breeds, where the funds 
are low, as every one who exhibits thinks the race he 
or she keeps is the principal. Wo, therefore, come at 
once to the cup for the most successful exhibitor; and 
that for the taker of the largest number of prizes. 
We think, in the first case, there should be a certain 
limit, and that no one should be eligible to compete for 
the prize who does not exhibit at least six pens. We will 
meet our objector as we go on. “ How can I,” says one, 
“ hope for success, as I keep but two breeds ? ” We answer, 
very easily. It is a lighter task to excel in two than in 
a dozen; take all the prizes in the classes in which you 
exhibit, and your success is certain. 
We object strongly to the usual wording of the second 
class, “ The taker of the largest number of prizes.” We 
