THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLE MAN, February 19, 1861. 
301 
the sinking of the thawed earth when the weather turned; 
and so it remained till the wind changed, and when it did 
we had the mildest and the slowest thaw, and the surest I 
ever remember to have seen or heard of. All that time 
and to this day that border has been on the sinking 
principle, and will sink still lower. 
How it is to pay is a long story, but by the last days 
of January it was thawed to the depth of my steel 
fork, with which I dig all experimental borders, or 
about 9 inches or 10 inches deep with a good tilth 
dry surface. I then pressed down the whole surface 
with the head of a rake, and sowed seeds on it, to 
prove one of two opposite notions about the effects of 
cold on tender seeds. I had maintained that, which 
I often found out by chance, that no amount of cold 
in our climate will injure any sort of flower-seeds till 
they vegetate. Also, that no seed will ever vegetate 
for being sown in good ground, until the earth is warm 
enough, or to that degree at which the seed would sprout 
naturally ; and others say if you sow seeds in cold soils, 
or in bad seasons, or before the sun warms the earth to 
the necessary degree, you do wrong and risk the seeds 
and seedlings. But 1 say, No, nothing of the sort. Every 
seed in London that does not want a hotbed, may be 
sown when the surface of the ground is so dry in the 
spring that raking or handling it does not hurt it, and my 
sinking-border will tell the same tale if I am right, and 
be as good for other experiments as I could wish it. 
D. Beaton. 
WARNING TO NURSERYMEN, FLORISTS, 
AND GENTLEMEN’S GARDENERS. 
I BEG to forward the enclosed, hoping it may prove a warning 
to persons who visit private establishments and nurseries under 
the plea of looking around, but really with the intention of 
robbery. 
Yesterday (Feb. 12th) at mid-day a very respectable young 
man in appearance, a native of Exeter, visited my establishment, 
and immediately commenced operations by pulling out of the 
store-pans large quantities of Verbenas, Lobelias, Gfazania 
splendens, &c., secreting them in his hat and pockets. He was 
given into custody, and tried at Hammersmith before Mr. Ingham, 
and sentenced to pay £20, or three months hard labour.— 
Charles Woodroffe, Westbourrie Nursery, Narrow Hoad. 
RIVERS’ “ROSE AMATEUR’S GUIDE.”* 
When the Nestor of Roses, the man who for thirty years and 
upwards has been engaged in their cultivation and management, 
comes forth to give us the results of his experience, we might 
naturally expect that there would be something worth reading 
and practical hints worth attending to ; and so for a number of 
years this little book of Mr. Rivers has been considered the 
Rose-grower’s vade mecum: insomuch so, that it seems almost 
presumptuous in those with far less practical experience to apply 
the process of criticism to a work so well known and so uni¬ 
versally recognised as the above. But we feel that when one 
speaks of criticism the term is hardly applicable ; for so well has 
Mr. Rivers executed his task, so much common sense and clever 
lively writing are there in it, and so complete is the information 
he affords, that we feel that there is but little left for us to do 
than to direct attention to those portions of it which are new to 
this edition. The sixth having been published four years ago, 
there has been of necessity a considerable change—if in nothing 
else, at any rate in the varieties introduced ; and while new 
ones have taken their place, old ones have been forgotten. 
But Mr. Rivers is not a man to stand still: and therefore it is 
not only in these particulars, but also in the methods of growth, 
that he has made the present edition an improvement on its 
predecessors. Thus hear what he says on the subject of deco¬ 
rated climbing Roses: —“A few years since a friend living at 
Waycliffe, near Guildford, found the heavily built brick bridge 
* The Rose Amateur's Guide, containing ample descriptions of all the 
leading varieties of Roses, regularly classed in their respective families, 
their history and mode of culture. By Thomas Rivers. Seventh Edition, 
enlarged, corrected, and improved. London : Longman, Green, Longman 
and Roberts. 1861. 
I leading over the railway to his house conspicuously ugly, and 
he wished it to be hidden by evergreen climbing plants. As the 
carriage road ran over the bridge, the gravel of which it was 
made did not seem to offer very happy quarters for any plant 
but Ivy, which was objected to as being too heavy. I then 
proposed planting it with varieties of Rosa sempervirens, or, aa 
we ought always to call them, ‘evergreen Roses.’ They were 
with some difficulty planted, the gravel being loosened with the 
pick and some manure mixed with it. They grew with great 
rapidity, and soon covered every brick ; but when they bloomed 
in large beautiful masses, some disappointment was expressed 
as to the monotony of colour. I was prepared for this, and 
told my friend they must be decorated. . . . This was done 
by putting in buds of various dark and rose-coloured Hybrid 
Perpetual Roses. He pays his annual visit in the following 
year, and is full of anxiety as to the result. ‘ What a glorious 
sight met my eye!’ Amid the masses of flowers of the pale 
climbing Roses shone forth large clusters of the Geant, General 
Jacqueminot, Triomphe des Beaux Arts, Prince Noir, Comte 
Bobinsky, Louis Perronny, Colonel de Rougemont, Jules Mar- 
gottin, and others. The bridge Was a fairy avenue, so charming 
was the effect.” 
He then gives full directions for carrying out similar plans in 
other places. Not less interesting is the portion of his book 
which treats of pyramidal Hybrid Perpetuals. Standard Roses, 
he says, must be condemned, and indeed the frost of this season 
has shown how little dependance is to be placed on them; and 
he therefore proposes to substitute for them pyramidal Hybrid 
Perpetuals. The plan for this he enters into at some length; 
but its main features consist in first budding two-year-old 
stocks of the Manetti Rose, with a preliminary budding of an 
old Hybrid China—Madame Pisaroni, one of a very vigorous 
and robust habit. “ This is done in July and August: in May 
the buds will begin to shoot vigorously. If there are more 
shoots than one from each bud they must be removed, leaving 
only one, which in June should be supported with a slight 
stake, or the wind may displace it. By the end of August this 
shoot ought to be from five to six feet in height, and is then in 
a proper state for budding to form a pyramid. This is done 
by commencing to bud at about nine inches from the ground, 
and continuing it on the opposite side, and so on at equal 
distances up to about five feet. The terminal shoot must be 
cut if early in June of the following year; and in the course of 
a year or two magnificent pyramids may thus be formed, their 
stems completely covered with foliage, and far surpassing any* 
thing yet seen in Rose culture.” 
What a pleasant thing it is for us, who are somewhat of 
enthusiasts in gardening, to find that the man who could con* 
struct from one bone the entire skeleton of the Dinornis, or 
from one tooth be able to tell the whole history of an extinct 
Pachyderm, can descend to the unscientific though pleasant 
work of making the wilderness literally “ blossom as the Rose 
for, for the idea of wilderness Roses Mr. Rivers says he is 
indebted to Professor Owen. In a rough, wild part of his 
ground, “large sewer-tubes, rejected on account of flaws in the 
enamel lining, were sunk vertically in the pure gravelly soil to 
within an inch or so of the surface, and filled in with loan! 
and manure, and a Rose planted in the centre of each. The 
soil in the tube was kept free from weeds and the running grass, 
and other weeds outside were prevented making their way into 
such good quarters. To give the Roses extra vigour, some 
manure water was given to them occasionally in the summer. 
The effect of Roses growing in the highest state of luxuriance in 
a wilderness was most charming. The inside diameter of these 
tubes is 16 inches, their length 30 inches ; so that they go 
below the roots of the weeds, which would otherwise devour the 
rich compost in which the Roses delight.” 
The opinion of one so thoroughly up in Roses as Mr. Rivers 
is recognised as of great value in deciding on all new varieties, 
though we do not believe him to be a veritable Pope, who can 
never make a mistake; for we have known Roses which he has 
spoken slightingly of at last come out as of recognised value— 
but in the main he is seldom wrong : hence we felt anxious to 
see what he says of the newer varieties in dark crimsons. He 
says, and we believe truly, “ Among this new group no variety 
can be more worthy of a note of praise than Triomphe de Lyon,” 
which it seems is a seedling raised from that most beautiful 
Rose Prince Leon, which it resembles in the fulness and per* 
fection of its flowers, with a colour like rich dark crimson velvet.” 
But surely there must be some mistake in saying that Empereur 
