8 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
September 5, 1885. 
A DOZEN SELECT ROSES, 
Here they are, and every one of them is of recent 
introduction, worthy the attention of lovers of Roses. 
I commence with four hybrid perpetuals, viz., Gloire 
Lyonnaise, which is described by the raiser as a yellow 
hybrid perpetual, although it partakes of some of the 
characteristics of the Tea Roses. The flowers are 
chrome-yellow, the petals edged with white, large, full, 
and finely formed, and with a scent of the Tea varieties. 
Queen of Queens is a seedling raised by Mr. William 
Paul, of Waltham Cross, and when first shown was 
thought to be thin, but it is a variety that has greatly 
improved by cultivation. The flowers are pink with a 
tint of blush on the edge of the petals, and it is a true 
perpetual Rose and very free ; it is a good exhibition 
Rose, and equally valuable for the decoration of the 
garden. Duke of Albany is of the same origin ; the 
flowers vivid crimson when they first open, but become 
shaded with age, taking on a lustrous velvety black ; 
very large and full ; a fine autumnal flowering Rose. 
Merveille de Lyon is the last of the quartette of hybrid 
perpetuals. It is unquestionably a fine new white 
Rose, very large and full, and handsomely cupped in 
the way of Baroness Rothschild. It makes a fine ex¬ 
hibition variety, though it is apt, in common with some 
other good flowers, to open in the centre. 
The Tea-scented varieties are Madame de Watteville, 
salmon-white, each petal bordered with bright rose, 
like a tulip, large anil full ; a very pretty and distinct 
novelty. Sunset, an American sport from Perle des 
Jardins, bearing flowers similar to that variety in form 
and substance, but of a pale bright apricot-yellow ; 
beautiful in bud, a fine forcing variety, and a good ex¬ 
hibition Rose. I saw this shown very finely at the end 
of August; the blooms had been cut from plants 
worked on the brier. It is a variety strongly recom¬ 
mended for pot culture. Etendard de Jeanne d’Arc is 
a seedling from the fine old Gloire de Dijon, and is 
regarded as one of the best Roses of recent years ; the 
flowers are creamy white changing to pure white, very 
large and full and opens well, which is more than can 
be said of some ol the Tea Roses. Madame Eugene 
Verdier is also a seedling from Gloire de Dijon, and 
being a strong grower, is suitable for massing with 
hybrid perpetuals, and it is also a good climbing Rose; 
the flowers are deep chamois-yellow, large and finely 
formed, and very sweet-scented. Souvenir de Therese 
Levet has bright deep red flowers, of medium size, full, 
and produced with remarkable freedom, and it gives to 
Rose fanciers a valuable red tea-scented Rose. Lady 
Mary Fitzwilliam is Mr. H. Bennett’s fine hybrid tea, 
the flowers very large, full, and globular, delicate flesh 
colour shaded with . rosy pink ;; a very pleasing and 
most useful Rose. The Hon. Edith Gitford is a lovely 
tea-scented Rose that has been much exhibited this 
season ; it is of exquisite shape, the colour flesh with 
centre of salmon-rose changing to white ; large, full, in 
the way of Devoniensis, but distinct from it. 
Lastly comes the pretty little Polyantha Rose, 
Perle d’Or, a very beautiful miniature Rose, with 
nankeen-yellow flowers, of good shape and very freely 
produced ; the growth dwarf, and well adapted for an 
edging to rose beds, while it is valuable, also, for 
forcing and for pot culture. This is a Rose that is 
very useful for bouquets ; indeed, it can be made use 
of in many ways for decorative purposes. 
The foregoing list by no means exhausts the recently- 
introduced Roses of value ; but they are a very good 
and select lot, well worthy the attention of culti¬ 
vators.— R. D. 
-- 
SPOTTED GLOXINIAS. 
It may, perhaps, not be amiss to call the attention 
of the plant-growing fraternity to this comparatively 
new section of Gloxinias ; for although they are to be 
met with in many gardens, I have not seen them grown 
so frequently as they deserve to be, more especially as 
many are more fond of new things than of old, whether 
improvements or not. As far as I remember, Messrs. 
Veitch introduced them five or six years since, when 
they were favourably received by the horticultural 
press. I have noticed during the summer that more 
exclamations were elicited from visitors here in praise 
of the spotted section than by either the erect or pen¬ 
dulous kinds, even when either of the last-named had 
double or even treble the number of flowers on each 
plant. This section I find to be more delicate in con¬ 
stitution than the older varieties, and not quite so 
free-flowering, both of which disadvantages will doubt¬ 
less be overcome by judicious selection of the strongest- 
growing and most free-flowering plants for the purpose 
of saving seed. The ground colour in nearly all of ours 
is white, and the spots are very varied in colour. The 
ground colours of some of them, however, are of a most 
aesthetic shade of red with darker spots, whilst one or 
two are different shades of light blue with darker spots. 
There is a great variation in the spotting—some are 
very thickly and evenly distributed over the throat and 
surface of the flowers ; some of them, again, are very 
thinly spread over the flowers, whilst others are irregu¬ 
larly spotted, so thickly as on first sight to appear 
both blotched and spotted. Anyone who has not yet 
added them to their collections should not fail to get a 
packet of seed in the spring, and from which they will 
get a great selection, or may purchase plants when in 
flower at the principal nurseries, if only a few plants 
are required.— E. D. 
-—-->X<-- 
CUCUMBER CULTURE. 
I read with considerable interest G. W. C.’s com¬ 
munication in your last number with reference to this 
subject, and his description of Mr. Roffey’s Cucumber 
houses and mode of culture. When I commenced my 
gardening career, Cucumber-houses were not thought 
of, nor had the system of heating by hot water been 
brought into use. Cucumbers were produced with a 
very great amount of labour by the aid of fermenting 
materials, and a pretty business it was, toiling all 
through the winter months, some of them far more 
rigorous than we have experienced of late years. To 
be able to cut the first Cucumber on Easter Sunday 
used to be the one great object aimed at by all of the 
old school of gardeners of 50 years ago and upwards. 
I often take a retrospective view of my early associations 
in the matter of gardening, comparing the past with 
the present, and I often fancy myself just before 
Christmas busy in preparing a seed-bed to receive a 
one-light frame in which to raise the young and tender 
plants. Subsequently, other beds for two-light frames 
were built in a very methodical manner to receive the 
plants so raised, it being quite a studied business to 
carefully prepare the fermenting material for the pur¬ 
pose, so that no mishap should occur to the tender and 
succulent little plant. 
When the heat was declining in the beds, linings of 
fresh stable dung had to be supplied as frequently as 
required, soas to maintain the proper temperature inside 
the beds ; hurdles had to be thatched and placed round 
the frame to prevent the strong winds from driving the 
heat from one end to the other, or perhaps out of the 
bed altogether. To ensure success, all this and much 
more had to be done, let the weather be what it may. 
Although at that time we laboured under so many dis¬ 
advantages, we were none the less happy in our 
avocation than the young scions of the present day. 
There was a degree of fondness for the work that gave 
zest to the action of the body, and brought the healthful, 
ruddy glow to the face—a pretty sure index as to the 
state of the mind, whether contented or otherwise. 
Cucumbers can now be had all the year round, but 
I do not, for my own part, consider this so great a boon 
as many imagine it to be, or that the use of this es¬ 
teemed esculent at all seasons of the year is conducive 
to a more healthful state of the body ; and although 
we now have appliances to enable us to produce fruits 
and vegetables of almost every description in season 
and out of season. Commercially it may be highly 
advantageous, but in a healthful point of view, I think 
seasonable products are much preferable and more com¬ 
mendable ; and as I have been actively engaged without 
intermission, in gardening for upwards of fifty years, 
my experience is of a somewhat extensive character. 
What has led me to make reference to “G. W. C.’s” 
paper is, that he states that “only the best formed 
fruits are allowed to remain for seeds, the others being 
cut as required for use. ” Now, very many gardeners 
have been impressed with the idea, that to obtain fine 
fruit of any given kind, it is absolutely necessary that 
the seed should be procured from the very finest speci¬ 
mens that it is possible to select, but this is a fallacy 
which I have demonstrated before, and, to my own 
mind, fully exploded. If a stock is kept true, it is of 
little importance what the size or form of the fruit 
may be, so that fructification has been attained and 
complete. A case in point occurred only recently. A 
friend of mine possessed a very fine kind, very long, 
and very handsome, and of him I obtained plants for 
my own use. I had some remarkably fine growths, 
and I made up my mind that I would save one or more 
for seeding. I selected some for this purpose, not the 
handsomest certainly, but inadvertently these were 
cut, and as it was very late in the season, I had almost 
lost the chance of securing any seed at all ; but by 
chance there was a fruit or two left, which were small 
and ill-formed ; and what made matters appear worse, 
my plants ceased to grow, it being late in the autumn 
consequently the only chance left was to ripen the fruit 
as well as I could off the plant, with the result that I 
obtained some very diminutive seeds indeed, but they 
were perfect. How, my friend saved some very fine 
ones for seed, and in cutting them open had not the 
satisfaction of obtaining one seed, from the fact, I 
presume, of the fruit not being fertilised, he was 
pleased to accept the seed I had saved. I have the 
gratification of stating that the produce was in every 
respect fully equal in size and form to any that had 
been grown from the very best selected specimens. 
I am growing Sutton’s Cluster Cucumber with the 
one mentioned, and a very nice-flavoured prolific little 
sort it is. I have crossed this with the one on which I 
have been treating, and vice versa, with the object of 
obtaining a variety of intermediate growth, from 1G 
to 18 inches, which I consider is a very suitable size for 
all purposes.— G. F., Lewisham. 
- - 
“ALPINE POINT.” 
One of the most attractive spots in Battersea Park 
is that part of the peninsula, appositely named by its 
designer, the late Mr. John Gibson, Alpine Point, and 
which forms the subject of the accompanying illustra¬ 
tion, reproduced from a photograph by Mr. F. 'Williams. 
The ground was thrown up in the manner indicated 
in imitation of mountain scenery, and the three “snowy 
peaks ” Created by planting the summits with the 
silvery-leaved Antennaria plantaginea. The planting 
of the base and foreground has somewhat varied from 
year to year, but the main idea of Mr. Gibson, which 
was to clothe the base with close-growing perennials, 
relieved by clumps and single specimens of various 
succulent plants, has been strictly adhered to by his 
able successor, Mr. Rodger. 
This season, Alpine Point has felt the effects of the 
prevailing drought, and the carpeting of Mentha pule- 
gium gibraltaricum on the lower slopes has not yet 
been seen at its best. The group and dot plants con¬ 
sist of the stronger-growing Sempervivums, such as 
Donkelaari, canariensis major, repens, and campylac- 
todon, Aloe barbadeusis and nitrseformis, Opuntias, 
low-growing Mesembryan them unis, dwarf Palms, Eu- 
onymuses, Retinosporas, Yuccas, and small bushes of 
Thalietrum alpinum ; the whole surrounded by a belt 
of dark green foliage, which throws out the ‘ ‘ points ” 
in bold relief. It is a remarkably effective bit of 
scenery, and few of the visitors pass by without staying 
to admire it. 
Notwithstanding all the watering, and all the care 
bestowed on the plants, the “ Sub-tropicals ” show the 
effects of the dry season in their less vigorous growth, 
though the refreshing showers which have fallen during 
the last week or two have had a remarkably invigorat- 
ng effect on the shallow-rooting plants. The flowed 
beds are as gay now as they will be seen this season, 
and of flowering plants we may note that there are 
more than usual, some of the larger beds, which used 
to be planted to pattern, being this season planted in 
the mixed style. The carpet beds are as bright as 
ever, and seem to have lost none of their popularity 
with the multitude. Almost all styles of bedding may 
be seen in this Park, Mr. Rodgers’ plan evidently 
being to provide something to please everybody, and 
in so doing we think he acts wisely. 
-- 
The Consumption of Wood in Great Britain.— 
Great Britain, in proportion to its size, is, perhaps, the 
largest consumer of wood in the world, and its demands 
are continually on the increase. In 185S we received 
about 3,400,000 loads of foreign and colonial woods of 
all kinds. In 1883 we imported over 6,640,000 loads, 
or nearly double the quantity of a quarter of a century 
ago. Although the value of the forest products of the 
United Kingdom is said to exceed £3,000,000 in value, 
yet our imports of wood are nearly six times that 
amount. 
