16 THE FLORIST. 
THE MANETT! ROSE STOCK. 
I ALWAYs feel interested in this stock. Whether it is that, being an old 
amateur, and remembering well its introduction, or only because it has 
been abused by some few growers, and praised by others, I cannot say. 
Friend Donald Beaton has now and then given it a severe prog with his 
“Cottage Gardener’s ” dagger ; he has now, however, turned round, and 
in the ‘‘ Cottage Gardener” of December 20, 1859, has given a flat- 
tering opinion of its value; but then Donald is young, and may turn 
round again. 
Mr. W. Paul has always been its bitter and most unrelenting enemy. 
It seems that the strong tenacious clay of the Cheshunt nursery did not 
suit it. It killed the Roses budded on it by its excessive vigour. 
Instead, however, of looking out for a plot of light soil, on which it 
would have flourished, Mr. W. P. denounced it, and has suffered his 
near neighbour and rival, Mr. E. P. Francis, of Hertford, to make a 
fortune by its cultivation. 
*« Strange that such difference should be, 
’"Twixt E. P. F. and W. P.” 
Now the soil at Hertford, in which Mr. F. cultivates his Roses on 
this stock, is the most heart-breaking, stony, barbarous soil that was 
ever formed into a Rose-garden. Just imagine a few acres of a stratum 
of gravel laid bare, with stones in it innumerable as big as your foot ; 
stir the surface, pick out the very large stones, add some manure, and 
you have the soil on which our friend EK. P. F. grows his Roses on the 
Manetti Rose stock, or, as Mr. W. Paul calls it, in his ‘‘ Rose Annual,” 
page 85, line 20 (I like to be particular) the ‘‘ Manettii bubble.” 
Why the two1’s? And why the prejudice? Does the latter owe its 
origin to the stock having been introduced by our ‘‘ King of Roses,”’ 
Mr. Rivers, who has written the only good and selling book on Roses 
ever published in England? No, it cannot be; but there certainly 
must be some cause for this continued denunciation of a Rose stock most 
valuable, for it seems to flourish as well in the sands of Yorkshire and 
Durham as it does in those on the south coast from Folkestone to 
Beechy Head, and has become an article of commerce ; for so well does 
it suit the climate of the United States, that some hundreds of thou- 
sands have been and are annually exported. I am inclined to distrust 
what is said in the ‘‘ Cottage Gardener,” p. 172, about grafts on this 
stock putting forth roots. In heavy soils they will not always do so, 
and some varieties are also very chary of putting out roots, even in 
very light soils, but then such soils suit the stock so well that the graft 
has no need of its own roots. . 
In rich deep Rose clays, by which I mean all clayey soils with a deep 
staple, the Dog Rose stock is on the whole the best of all. It is very 
durable, may be removed at almost any period of its life, and generally 
induces the kind of Rose budded on it to throw out flowers of the largest 
size. But for poor sandy soils or gravelly hills like those break-heart, 
break-neck hills round Hertford, no Rose stock car excel the Manetti. 
I should, however, prefer budded Roses to those that are grafted, and 
