1882 .] 
CUEEANT BLACK CHAMPION.-A PEW WOEDS ABOUT EOSES. 
185 
who require the better class of flowers to 
work up with the regular supplies available at 
this season must now see to uheir first crop of 
Azaleas being forthcoming when they are 
wanted. The stock of plants must be care¬ 
fully looked over, and the sorts most easily 
excited, and with the most prominent buds, 
selected and placed in a structure where they 
will receive an airy temperature of 65° or 
thereabouts, being set as near the glass as it 
is possible to place them, so that a ray of 
light will not be lost to them. Here they will 
slowly and surely open their buds. In direct 
proportion to the perfecting of the process of 
ripening in course of the summer, will be the 
ease or difficulty with which they will force. 
And as with the opening of the buds, so does 
the relative size, and substance and colouring, 
depend on the same beneficial influence. The 
cry of the dying philosopher, “ Light !—more 
light! ” was never more devoutly uttered, nor 
more full of meaning, than when hanging on 
the lips of the anxious and careful Azalea 
forcer.—A. Mackenzie, Warriston Nursery, 
Edinburgh. (Abstracted from a paper read 
before the Scottish Horticultural Association.) 
CURRANT BLACK CHAMPION. 
[Plate 576.] 
HIS is doubtless the finest variety of 
Black Currant yet introduced. It was 
obtained by W. H. Dunnett, Esq , 
Stour House, Dedham, and was 
awarded a lst-class Certificate by the Fruit 
Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society 
when exhibited before that body by Messrs. 
Carter & Co., of High Holborn, on August 9tli, 
1881, the opinion pronounced being that it 
was remarkably prolific, and that it bore very 
large bunches and unusually large richly- 
flavoured berries, of a shining black colour. 
We had intended to figure it last year, but 
somehow the specimens miscarried. Our 
plate is therefore from the fruit of the present 
season, and thus affords evidence from a 
second crop that its fine appearance was not 
the accident of one specially favourable 
season, but that its good qualities are per¬ 
manent under good cultivation. Mr. Mac- 
farlane’s drawing here given, and which is 
very faithful, has been in great part copied in 
the woodcut issued with Messrs. Carter’s 
Autumn Catalogue, and repeated in the Journal 
of Horticulture, 3 ser., v., 203. 
The profuse bearing habit of this Currant is 
one of its most remarkable features, while 
many of the berries are so large as to be 
taken for medium-sized grapes, and though 
the bunches are very long, the berries ripen 
simultaneously. The flavour is particularly 
luscious and delicate. “ It is the longest and 
latest hanging variety in cultivation, good 
fruit being last year gathered the last week in 
September, of which a dish was exhibited on 
September 9th.” The tree is robust in habit, 
bears pruning without prejudice, and stands 
drought well. Taking all these qualities into 
account, it would seem that it may be fairly 
pronounced to be the finest of all the varieties 
of Black Currant to be found in our gardens, 
and one which will repay high cultivation, being 
especially valuable to growers for market by 
reason of its extraordinary fruitfulness.—M. 
A FEW WORDS ABOUT ROSES. 
1 HOUGH the season has been cold and 
variable, the Roses here have, on the 
whole, done fairly well. Late buds 
have been plentiful and good, and 
many of them have opened nicely on mild days. 
Queen of Bedders has been very fine ; it is a 
good useful Rose, a good grower, and a most 
profuse bloomer ; it will be grown very largely 
when it becomes better known. Geant des 
Batailles is a good useful Rose for furnishing 
a supply of nice buds late in the season ; in 
hot weather the buds soon open out and spoil, 
but in September and October they are more 
lasting, and as they are produced plentifully, 
they are valuable. Gloire de Dijon is a well- 
known Rose, and one that is largely grown, 
its buds being in great request. With a plant 
or two against a wall, and a few standards in 
the open borders, buds can be had plentifully 
from the beginning of April till the end of 
October. Standards of this variety require a 
little management. If left alone they are apt 
to produce two or three shoots that will grow 
to five or six feet in length, and produce only 
one or two buds at the ends. Instead, there¬ 
fore, of leaving these shoots to grow to this 
length, they should be stopped when about a 
foot long, when they will soon break, and 
throw out two or three young shoots each, 
