86 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
October 8, 1892. 
Fine looking pods of great length and moderately 
wide are produced by Sutton’s Prizewinner, but the 
crop was only moderate about the beginning of last 
month. On the contrary Giant Scarlet Long bore an 
excellent crop of broad and straight or slightly 
curved pods, rather rough on both edges. Hill’s Prize, 
like the last named, is a tall growing late variety 
with smooth pods of moderate length and breadth, 
produced in great abundance. As the name would 
imply, Fillbasket produces bulky pods 6 in. to 12 in. 
long, but narrow and smooth. As the pods get old 
they get torulose or undulated showing the outline 
of the seeds. It closely resembles \\ hite Scimitar in 
several respects. The above are all that were hon¬ 
oured with three marks. 
A number received two marks, including The Czar 
with long, curved pods rather uneven in outline, but 
very freely produced. Like the last named, Giant 
White is also a white flowered variety, and has long, 
curved pods like a scimitar or boomerang ; it crops 
heavily. The smooth, narrow pods of Emperor 
Frederick are creamy white suffused or speckled 
with red where exposed to the light. It may be dis¬ 
tinct but is not particularly attractive. A tall and 
late variety is Invincible, but a good cropper; its 
pods are long, moderately broad and bronzy red on 
the back when exposed to direct sunlight. New 
Giant Titan makes the fifth variety receiving two 
marks. The pods of this, contrary to those of the 
last, are moderately long and very broad, and deep 
green. The plant continues growing and flowering 
till very late in the season. 
Many others not honoured with any award are 
interesting as showing the amount of variation which 
the Scarlet Runner (Phaseolus multiflorusj is capable 
of undergoing. It is very difficult to make the 
general public take to varieties with pods of any 
colour except green, notwithstanding the delicacy or 
tenderness of the yellow wax-pod sorts. Still less 
would a yellow variety splashed with scarlet and 
named Speckled Butter be accepted, although it 
must be acknowledged handsome and might be em¬ 
ployed on trellises and to cover wire archways in the 
flower garden and other places for purely decorative 
purposes. Very singular also is that named Purple, 
the pods of which are long, slightly undulated, 
smooth and of a deep blue purple. It crops very 
heavily, and has purple flowers with the leaves also 
tinted with bronzy-purple. Equally heavily cropped 
is Blue Podded, with lighter purple pods than the 
last named, and dark purple flowers. Both might 
be used in conjunction with Speckled Butter for or¬ 
namental purposes to furnish variety amongst climb¬ 
ing annuals. More utilitarian would be the variety 
named Princess Van Celst, with long, very narrow 
pods comparable to those of Canadian Wonder or 
some other dwarf Bean of the same type. That 
named Broad Skinless Pod seems to belie its name, 
for the pods are of medium length, cylindrical and 
fleshy. Princess yellow Podded or Sitgar Pearl is 
notable for its small creamy yellow pods. 
Other instances might be named to show the 
extent of variation, but the above should suffice, as a 
multiplicity of variation does not seem to be particu¬ 
larly necessary for the purpose of supplying food. 
Large shapely pods are wanted for exhibition pur¬ 
poses ; but seeing that all alike are cut up for table 
use, this standard of merit is lost sight of. Fleshy 
and tender pods of a rich dark green should be kept 
in view and plenty of them. Beyond that early 
varieties should be encouraged, and hardiness. The 
latter characteristic in varieties does not seem to 
have received an adequate amount of attention. It 
would assuredly advance the interest and value of a 
variety, if it was capable of resisting late spring 
frosts. Excessively tall varieties might be avoided, 
dwarf ones encouraged, and thinner planting adopted 
than is often the case. 
--*•-- 
CHATSWORTH. 
I enjoyed the park at Chatsworth ; did not like the 
terrace, but found, notwithstanding some bad 
anomalies, the results of Paxton’s work in the 
pleasure grounds more agreeably interesting than I 
had in some way been led to suppose, or than 
I remembered them. I suppose this is the result of 
growth. Justice can often not be done to a land¬ 
scape gardener’s design in less than fifty years after 
the work has been initiated. N or then or ever, unless 
it has been in the hands of one in sympathy with 
nature. 
Reviewing all that I have seen in England, it 
appears to me that the selection and disposition of 
trees and plants, the modelling of surfaces and the 
arrangement of roads and walks and architectural 
conveniences, with a view to pleasing general effects 
of scenery, have been of late much confused and 
often lost sight of in efforts to provide brilliant local 
spectacles, to display rarities, curiosities and luxuries 
of vegetation, and to exhibit master-pieces of horti¬ 
cultural craft and costly garden bric-a-brac. Vast 
numbers of trees have been planted without know¬ 
ledge or soundly formed anticipations of what they 
will become. Many of them are failing, and many 
that are not failing are conspicuously offensive, 
because of their unfitness to combine with the 
native elements of English scenery. Since my 
earlier visits the country has lost something of 
picturesque interest, mainly I think through agricul¬ 
tural and economical improvements ; but a little, I 
am inclined to think, because of some slight and 
probably temporary turn of public sentiment toward 
prosaic neatness and formality. 
Since my last visit there has been a decided abate¬ 
ment of the bedding-out nuisance, and of all the 
garish and childish fashions that came in with it. 
The gardeners and others with whom I have talked 
have been generally conceding—some with eviden 
regret—that it was going out of fashion. Any who 
think that with it their occupation will be gone, had 
better come quickly to America, where all the beauty 
that I have been aiming to provide on various 
grounds is wholly put out of countenance by it. 
There has never been a square yard of bedding out 
on any ground under my direction.— F. L. Olmsted, 
New York, in The Garden. 
-.f—- 
THE PROPAGATION OF 
ROSES. 
In a paper read at the recent convention of the 
American Florists’ Society, Mr. Pierson said that 
Roses can be successfully propagated at any time of 
the year, though experience has taught us that 
better plants can be produced from wood taken 
during the late winter and early spring than at other 
seasons. At that time the plants are in their most 
vigorous condition, having responded to the longer 
days and increased sunlight by producing wood that 
is firm, strong, and healthy; fortunately this is also 
the season at which we are forced to do most of our 
propagating for the coming season’s stock in order 
to have plants in proper condition at planting time, 
so that in this case necessity and advantage go hand 
in hand. Earlier, the wood is apt to be soft and 
sappy; later, the plants have become weakened 
through excessive heat and continued cutting. 
In selecting wood from which cuttings are to be 
made, careful attention should be paid to the selec¬ 
tion of only healthy and vigorous shoots. Wood 
that is mildewed to any extent rarely does well, as 
the diseased foliage is in a debilitated condition and 
unfitted to endure the ordeal of the unnatural con¬ 
ditions to which it is to be subjected for the month 
of its transformation from a fresh cutting into a 
healthy rooted one ready for its first pot. During 
this period, when devoid of root the cutting is de¬ 
pendent on the healthy condition and vitality of the 
wood from which it is made, hence the necessity of 
care in its selection. Foliage infested with red spider 
should be avoided, as from the position in which the 
cuttings are placed in the bench with the foliage 
close to the sand, it is impossible to syringe the un¬ 
der-side of the leaf where this pest is wont to lurk, 
and as a result it multiplies so rapidly that by the 
time the cutting should be rooted, we find it eaten 
up, or so sapped of vitality as to be worthless. 
A cutting should never be made of wood whose 
foliage is black spotted, for every leaf so infected, 
whether the spots be large, small, many or few, is 
certain to sicken, die, and finally drop on the sand 
of the bench, there (if not removed at once) to breed 
the dreaded cutting bench fungus, and thus not only 
does your infected cutting die itself, but spreads dis¬ 
ease among its healthy neighbours. If the cutting 
be made of wood too hard or over ripe, the tissues 
will have become contracted and the power to 
absorb water from the sand much reduced, resulting 
in the foliage quickly turning yellow and drooping ; 
or if the cutting roots at all, it will be observed that 
the callus forms very slowly, and the roots that 
finally develop, do so after a much longer period than 
would be necessary with a proper cutting, and will 
be slender and lacking in strength, resulting neces¬ 
sarily in a plant wiry and without the vigour so 
essential to the best results. Again, if wood be 
taken too soft, the young and tender foliage will 
evaporate moisture faster than it can be supplied, 
and the result will be a quickly wilted and ruined 
cutting. Wood that is half ripe, experience has proven 
best suited to root quickly and strongly, and hence 
produce a vigorous plant; a condition that is hard to 
describe to a novice, but which is easily known at a 
glance by the experienced. 
A good idea may be convej'ed by saying that the 
condition of wood found on shoots whose buds are 
beginning to show colour is the ideal, and in the best 
possible stage of maturity ; but in my opinion it is 
not necessary that the shoot from which cuttings are 
made should terminate in a bud. It will be observed 
that I have insisted on the selection of perfectly 
healthy wood, and wood in the proper condition re¬ 
specting maturity; but I am inclined to differ from 
the authorities regarding the importance attached to 
the selection of blooming wood for propagation. My 
objections to this practice are two-fold ; first, it is 
very expensive. The time when most of us do our 
propagating is during the first three months of the 
year, January, February, and March ; we may do 
some earlier, some later, but much the greater 
amount of it is done in these months when the price 
of the flower is highest. Let us look at the subject 
from the standpoint of first cost of the cuttings for a 
moment, and we shall realise what a great, and I 
believe needless, expense is here incurred. Flowering 
canes of the class of Mermet, Bride, Cusin, La 
France, etc., when cut back so as to leave at least 
two eyes on the plant, contain as a rule no more than 
six to eight joints. Adopting the old rule of making 
the cutting at an eye, requires at least two eyes to 
each cutting, very often an eye or two will be wasted 
in making, so that each shoot taken will on an aver¬ 
age make no more than three cuttings. 
I contend that cuttings made from blind wood not 
only produce plants fully as good in every way but if 
there be any difference better plants than usually 
grown from blooming wood. I do not mean by blind 
wood all the light, twiggy, wiry stuff that comes, but 
on almost every variety a certain amount of wood 
comes blind, and yet short-jointed and firm (there 
are some exceptions to this rule, Wootton being one 
variety that rarely produces a blind shoot), but it is 
true of most varieties, and where such wood can be 
obtained and taken when in proper condition, I be¬ 
lieve it produces the very best possible plants. This 
wood should be torn from the plant and the knife 
used as little as possible, the cutting rooting much 
better when it is torn than when cut. My reason for 
holding this class of cutting to be the best that can 
possibly be taken are several: first, such cuttings 
root much more quickly, three weeks being 
sufficient; second, the roots are both stronger and 
more numerous than can be obtained from other 
wood. I have frequently on digging such cuttings 
from the propagating bed counted from ten to fifteen 
strong healthy rootlets started from the heel, and as 
abundant healthy roots are such important factors in 
the growth of a strong plant, the value of this point 
will be readily admitted. Third, this wood is short 
jointed and full of dormant eyes at the base, giving 
promise of abundant bottom shoots as the plants 
develop. 
I do not wish to convey the idea that a double 
eyed cutting made at a sacrifice of a bud will not 
produce a good plant, but I firmly believe that a 
blind cutting will produce fully as good a plant, at a 
saving in the aggregate of many a hard earned dollar, 
will root quicker and with far less percentage of loss 
than the other. 
In taking the cuttings, care should be used to 
prevent the foliage from wilting. 
In making, the knife used should be keen and the 
cutting severed by a quick sharp stroke. The wood 
should not be held against the thumb fur free, to 
avoid even the slight bruise that is unavoidable if 
pressure be brought to insert the knife. All very 
soft foliage should be cut away and the old foliage 
trimmed back ; this will prevent too rapid evapora¬ 
tion and also enable us to place more cuttings in the 
bench without overcrowding. Our custom is to 
stick the cuttings about an inch apart in rows, and 
the rows about two inches apart ; of course this is 
subject to variation as the cuttings may be heavy or 
light. The bench appears much neater if the foliage 
all presents the upper side of the leaves towards the 
