March 27, 1886. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
473 
THE MARECHAL NIEL ROSE. 
It will, 1 think, be readily admitted on all sides that 
at the most this is probably the shortest lived of all 
our Roses, a problem somewhat difficult to solve. 
Various reasons have been assigned for this premature 
decay, but anything in the way of a preventive is 
not so readily to hand. Many thousands of Roses 
are annually “worked” by leading nurserymen on 
various stocks, and disposed of in a great many gardens 
where soils of various character and treatment of 
different kind is sure to 
await them. Though I 
have never heard of “half 
leaf mould,” see p. 411, 
prescribed for this Rose, 
or, indeed, any other, I 
am inclined to the belief 
that there is truth in the 
statement, that the stiff 
natural soil of the garden 
is well suited to it, as 
stated by your corre¬ 
spondent, Mr. Bayne. 
I have seen it planted 
in most unfavourable po¬ 
sitions—that is positions 
which would never have 
been selected, but on the 
contrary, condemned 
by experienced men. 
Still the plants have 
made such headway that 
it was evident their re¬ 
quirements were for once 
met. I have in my 
mind’s eye two cases of 
this Rose doing well, one 
in a carpenter’s garden 
near Nottingham, the 
other in a nursery ; in 
the first case the plant, 
which was on its own 
roots, was planted in the 
ordinary soil, which was 
excellent brick soil, large 
kilns being in the neigh¬ 
bourhood, and trained to 
a brick wall some 12 ft. 
long and 6 ft. high, which 
served as a party wall to 
semi-detached cottages, 
and was the only avail¬ 
able spot. All the care 
bestowed upon it at plant¬ 
ing time is obvious in the 
words of its owner, “ I 
thought I’d stick him in 
and see if he’d do any 
good.’ 
The roots, too, had to 
travel beneath the brick 
floor in the back yard, 
rendering mulching al¬ 
most impossible, never¬ 
theless, it made great pro¬ 
gress, flowered freely and 
well, and was surprisingly 
free from canker. In 
the nurseryman’s case 
the plant was on a briar 
stock, a standard some 
4 ft. high, which was planted beneath a stage in an old 
Azalea house, and, though it was cankered at the union 
of stock and scion to nearly the size of a cocoa-nut, I 
have known it to carry in a season upwards of 2,000 
fine blooms. 
The owner much feared losing his plant, 'which, by 
the way, was a profitable one, occupying little room, 
and requiring little attention, and I suggested placing 
a strong box 2 ft. square about the stem above the stage, 
cut the stem all round above the canker after it had 
ceased flowering, and filling in with good stiff rich 
loam and manure ; this advice was followed and the 
plant is still a healthy and vigorous one, yielding 
quantities of bloom annually. I do not say that if 
this had not been done the plant would have died, but 
on the other hand the increased vigour of the plant 
bore sufficient evidence that new roots had been 
emitted, and in turn were acting beneficially towards 
the plant. 
I am of opinion that a cool greenhouse heated 
only in case of severe frost ■would suit it best, and 
I would certainly give the preference to plants on 
their own roots or on the seedling briar. I think an 
excellent stock for the future may be found in the 
Grifferaie for the Marechal Niel, being stout and of 
a vigorous constitution. In any case it is worth 
trying— J. 
Amaryllis : One of the Best Types. 
WHITTINGHAME. 
High on the rounding banks of an excellent trout 
stream, which flows quietly through a beautifully 
wooded glen, facing the “Old Castle”—once the home 
of the Douglases—at the top of the charming grounds 
on the opposite side, stands Whittinghame, the ancestral 
home of the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour. The stream 
referred to above, is generally called the Whitting¬ 
hame Burn ; its real name, however, from its source in 
the Lammermoor hills until it empties itself into the 
sea at Belliaven Sands, is the Papana. Whittinghame 
is situate amidst a wealth of woodland scenery, about 
three miles south-east from Prestonkirk and the East 
Linton station of the Great Northern main line of 
railway ; and a like distance, in an opposite direction, 
from Dunbar and its historical castle, now, like many 
others of the thirteenth century note, in ruins. I may 
be pardoned for making a slight digression here to 
state that the Earl of March, being away with the 
Regent in 1339, the Earl of Salisbury took advantage 
of his absence, by attacking his castle of Dunbar, ex¬ 
pecting an easy victory ; but in this he was woefully 
mistaken, as the good lady of the house—Black Agnes 
—kept him at bay for nineteen weeks. 
“ She kept a stir in tower and trench, 
That brawling, boisterous, Scottish wench ; 
Came I early, came I late, 
I found Agnes at the gate.” 
The Whittinghame 
Estate . is rich in “ old 
castles,” as there are two 
in addition to the one 
referred to above, which 
in the time of Queen 
Mary was, as already 
stated, occupied by a 
Douglas—not, as is very 
generally believed, the 
Black Douglas, but quite 
a different family alto¬ 
gether, a younger scion 
of the house of Morton. 
The castle of Hailes, now 
in ruins, was at that 
time occupied by the 
Earl of Morton, head of 
that house, and the castle 
called “Stoneypath 
Tourn, ” which then 
belonged to the Earl of 
Bothwell. I may also 
mention the existence of 
the old parish graveyard, 
in close proximity to the 
old castle in the grounds, 
and which has been 
closed since the year 
1300, the only token of 
the past being a monu¬ 
ment erected there in 
1817 to the memory of 
the old proprietors of the 
estate, Mr. Balfour’s late 
mother, Lady Blanche 
Balfour, and his late 
brother, Professor 
Balfour, who met with 
his death on the Alps a 
few years since, are both 
buried here in a plot of 
the sacred ground en¬ 
closed for the purpose. 
It may also be interesting, 
in an antiquarian point 
of view, to say that em¬ 
bedded among the roots 
of the large Beech trees, 
which were uprooted 
during the great October 
gale of four years since, 
were found human skulls 
and other bones of the 
human frame. 
The present mansion is 
an elaborate building in 
the Grecian style of archi¬ 
tecture. It is commo¬ 
dious, handsome in ap¬ 
pearance, and (as indi¬ 
cated above) is effectually protected by a mass of spread¬ 
ing trees from the fury of the north and east winds from 
the German Ocean, a few miles distant. Whittinghame 
is well known to many readers of The Gardening World 
as being a first-rate gardening establishment, having 
numerous glass-houses of modern erection, extensive 
and beautifully undulated grounds, as well as for the 
beauty and excellent condition of the choice collection 
of Conifer and other trees they contain. Therefore, a 
few particulars of the most notable trees may not 
only prove interesting, but also instructive, beginning 
with the greatest stranger, a Eucalyptus. Hitherto, Mr. 
Garrett, the able gardener atWhittinghame,had supposed 
the species to have been E. viminals, it having been 
so named by the late Professor Balfour ; but Sir Joseph 
Hooker, to whom Mr. Garrett lately sent a branch, 
recognised it as one which he had himself gathered on 
