THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, July 19, 1859. 
223 
leaves hold on even in the open air, and so hasten the 1 
rooting as they say, which leaves ample room to doubt; 
but in the absence of actual and most carefully conducted 
experiments to prove what they say, we shall take it for 
granted. One leaf, or at most two leaves, are quite 
enough for one Rose cutting from the middle of June to 
the last of August. The little side spurs, slipped off with 
a heel, make the best practical cuttings. One inch deep 
is quite enough for summer cuttings ; and they should 
not lack for want of water from the day they are put in 
till they are rooted. The fact is, you take them at the 
height of the tide, and there must be no ebbing till the 
rooting is completed, as the least neglect or awkwardness 
might spoil all iu one day; but tide, time, and temper 
would be gainers if all such cuttings were lifted with a 
trowel as soon as the Carnation layers were potted in 
September, and were planted out in rows on a newly- ! 
made bed. In that case they should not be pruned back 
till the first bud breaks in the spring. 
At the Experimental Garden the Roses bloomed very 
finely this year. Every dwarf Rose there is on its own 
roots, and the standards are on the Dog Rose. The 
Manetti Rose will hardly live on its own roots in that 
garden ; and no Rose in existence will live four years in 
it on the Manetti stock. A large bed of Geant des 
Batailles, with an edging of the Malmaison Rose, both 
on the Manetti, was pointed out to me the first day I 
saw that garden as a recommendation by The Cottage 
Gardener. They all looked well, but in three or four 
years there was hardly a live branch on one of them. 
"Their bed and the situation were changed and remained 
under my own eye, but to no purpose. So you see there 
was a sufficient cause for us to try what else could be 
done, and it is done ; and I question if the La Heine Rose 
was ever bloomed better, than it bloomed there this sea- j 
son on its own roots. Gloire de Rosamene does as badly 
hereabouts as the Manetti: it is not worth a straw. Mr. 
Wilmore, the nursery auctioneer at Sunbury, sold a small 
nui’sery stock last spring at Surbiton, when ail the 
gardeners bought something; but two rows of Manetti, 
ten feet high, and four feet through each plant, in each 
row of about eight or nine yards in length, he could not ; 
get a bid for, and I bought the two rows next day for Is. 1 
each, and almost forced them on Mr. Ross, one of the I 
principal practicals of this place. That nursery was on a 
moorland, half black sand, and half bastard kind of peat, 
where the common Heaths grow very well. That seemed 
to me to be just the soil for the Manetti; for the Dog 
Rose on the best Bean land could not grow to one-half 
the size of the Manetti in the same time. 
The last turn of Roses to-day must bring us back 
again to old Gilbert’s “ Yade Mecum,” and the double¬ 
yellow Rose. No doubt something more than we yet 
know of may be done by double working. Many splendid 
Roses do not open well; we have not the exact kind of 
stock for them. Some are shy bloomers, and all such ought 
to be treated as Gilbert’s father-in-law taught about the 
yellow Rose—say, the Cloth of Gold, Isabella Grey, and 
some fine newer ones, which will neither bloom nor do 
anyhow. The way to serve them is to let them get wild as 
it were, and not prune them, summer or winter, till they 
first show for bloom, if it were ever so many years ; then 
do as Gilbert said, prune all the small shoots off quite 
close next winter, thin the middle-sized shoots, and if 
there is no room to fill up, cut out also all the very strong 
shoots. D. Beaton. 
PROVINCIAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 
EXHIBITION AT KIRKSTALL ABBEY. 
I am not such a complete enthusiast in support of me¬ 
tropolitan and provincial exhibitions as to come to the 
conclusion that, in every case, it is the duty of employers 
and their gardeners actually to engage in them. I may, 
ere long, advert to cases and circumstances in which it 
would contribute to the comfort and happiness of both 
quietly to stand aloof, and be the somewhat selfish partici¬ 
pators in improvements from which they cannot help 
receiving advantage, even though for effecting these im¬ 
provements they individually have contributed little or 
nothing. That these advantages have been realised 
cannot admit of a doubt. The employer is, or ought to 
be, better supplied merely from the stimulus to energy 
presented on cve^ side to the gardener. The gardener 
from necessity, if not from choice, must exert himself, or 
he will be left alone in his glory and his indolence. 
Every man would naturally- make himself a Pope if he 
could. They who, like gardeners, live much alone, are apt, 
gradually, to be tinged with a sort of felt, if not expressed, 
superiority. Such self-esteem is somewhat palliated by the 
circumstances. A man is not so greatly to be blamed for 
believing he is doing well enough when he has no oppor¬ 
tunity of seeing others around him doing better. For 
humbling all such conceit, nothing is better than a first- 
rate exhibition-table. A felt inferiority, a seeming defi¬ 
ciency, are the first steps to unwearied exertion. Your 
remarkably clever people in their own estimation have 
the misfortune to be considered so in general only by 
themselves. 
I say nothing of what even such provincial exhibitions 
have done for gardening. I pass over the fact that nursery¬ 
men have found them a good medium alike for securing 
! fame and obtaining orders; but I do wish that the bene- 
; ficial influence of such exhibitions on the community at 
large was more generally felt. The suggestive in utility 
and taste, to every one having a garden or a window 
plant, is no little matter. The promoting of a high-toned 
intelligent pleasure and the smoothing down of social 
casteships are still higher considerations. 
Whatever we are engaged upon, we like change. Body 
and mind alike require it. This change will often secure 
for us a kind of rest even in labour. The resident in 
smoke-clouded large towns needs this change the most. 
Such change, if it involves for a short time the giving up 
remunerative labour, is not time lost—the whole system 
becomes nerved and strengthened for increased energy. 
What more delightful than to pass from the noise and 
dust of crowded streets to tables and banks of flowers, 
breathe the pure air of heaven, and listen to melodiotis 
music, reflected and re-echoed by water and wood ? Need 
we wonder that our fair sisters, who have more than 
sympathy with all that is flowery and beautiful, should 
linger amid such scenes, and alike give and receive 
honour by their commendation and approval ? 
Again, with all our boasted progress there is still some¬ 
thing of the casteship of the Hindoo about us. It peeps 
out in every trade and profession; it boldly struts in 
political differences ; and, perhaps, is never ro bitterly 
prominent as amid our trifling religious distinctions. 
Thoroughly good people are thus kept apart whose 
hearts, on everything of importance, beat in accord and 
sympathy. Congregate such around a fine collection of 
flowers, and if not pretty well softened down themselves, 
the acts of courtesy exchanged whilst admiring a common 
object act as a pleasantly heated crucible that insensibty 
melts down and removes all the outside incrustation of 
misconception and prejudice; and we go home pleased 
with ourselves, delighted with everything and everybody, 
just because we have insensibly, in the presence of the 
beautiful, become more charitable and benevolent, and 
silently put to ourselves the question, AVhy, hitherto, has 
it pleased us to dwell on the seen or fancied imperfections 
of our neighbours, instead of their many perfections and 
amiabilities ? 
Influenced by such considerations, along with the 
desire for change, and to see and to be seen, some six 
thousands of the elite of Leeds and its neighbourhood 
met together on the afternoon of the 24th of June amid 
the romantic ruins of Kirkstall Abbey, so delightfully 
