April  6,  1899. 
278 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
having.  I  have  not  yet  learned  why ;  but  although  I  am  open  to 
learn,  I  am  doubtless,  as  a  dweller  in  the  Midlands,  somewhat 
prejudiced  in  my  views.  But,  to  put  this  question  aside,  for  really  it 
does  not  need  argument,  as  every  practical  man  who  knows  anything 
about  fruit  trees  knoAvs  as  well  as  he  can  be  told,  that  the  question  of 
North  or  South  has  no  value  in  the  matter,  whilst  soil  and  culture  may 
have  a  good  deal. 
Let  us  turn  to  the  next  point.  The  manuring  of  nurseries.  Where 
in  the  world — no,  I  mean  in  England — did  the  Professor  get  his 
facts  ”  from  ?  I  have  some  little  experience  of  nurseries,  and  hav'e 
visited  many,  hut  the  picture  of  the  abnormally  rich  land  overdone 
with  manure  is  not  the  one  which  I  could  call  to  my  mind  with 
any  truthfulness  when  recalling  my  wanderings  amongst  nurseries. 
True  it  is  that  once  in  my  life  I  saw  a  nursery  established  on  old 
market  garden  land  so  rich  in  manure  that  it  was  necessary  to  double 
•crop  the  land  with  vegetables  to  prevent  the  trees  growing  too  much, 
and  even  then  they  went  mad  and  produced  growths  9  feet  in  length, 
which  I  doubt  me  would  not  withstand  the  attack  of  a  severe  frost, 
■nor  should  I  have  chosen  such  trees  to  plant  on  a  poor  soil  ;  hut  that 
was  in  the  favoured  South.  Set  against  this  the  hundreds  of  nurseries 
and  the  many  hundreds  of  acres  therein  which  cry  with  no  uncertain 
voice,  as  one  passes  by,  “Muck,  give  me  muck.” 
One  hundred  tons  per  acre  !  Where  outside  of  the  radius  supplied 
by  London  could  it  be  obtained  ?  Who  of  us  poor  midlanders  could 
afford  such  a  luxury  ?  I  await  the  answer  with  eagerness.  I  should 
like  to  give  my  land  a  treat  of  this  kind  once  in  a  way,  and  I  think  it 
would  bear  it.  But  those  trees  from  the  South,  are  they  grown  with- 
cut  manure,  or  is  it  only  in  the  North  that  dung  grows  trees  Avhich 
are  so  fat  that  they  are  apt  to  melt  on  a  hot  day,  and  fail  to  grow 
when  transplanted  ?  Oh  !  my  brother  nurserymen  in  the  South,  you 
must  tell  us  the  secret  you  possess,  it  would  make  our  fortunes  could 
we  grow  good  trees  without  manure. 
But  when  one  reads  on  one  finds  that,  after  all,  the  manure  is  the 
right  thing,  for  nurserymen  are  blamed  for  advising  planters  not  to 
use  manure  in  preparing  soil  for  trees.  No  practical  nurseryman 
would  try  to  lay  down  a  hard  and  fast  law  of  this  kind.  If  trees  are 
planted  in  a  rich  old  garden  soil,  well  and  good,  they  do  not  need 
manure  if  the  nurseryman  has  done  his  duty  by  them,  and,  saving  a 
mulching,  would  be  better  without  it;  but,  surely,  if  the  question  be 
of  planting  a  newly  acquired  allotment  ground  recently  broken  up 
from  a  ploughed  and  impoverished  field,  the  same  advice  would  not 
hold  good. 
One  Avord  more.  There  are  “  failures,”  and  I  Avonld  name  as 
reasons  for  them  poor  half-starved  trees  with  no  constitution  to  begin 
with,  also  there  is  such  a  thing  as  badly  prepared  soil,  as  Avell  as  ill- 
chosen  damp  situations,  badly  planted  trees,  and  (most  frequently 
found  of  all)  neglected  trees,  Avhich,  once  planted,  or  stuck  in  the  soil, 
have  no  further  attention  paid  to  them,  around  Avhich  the  hoe  does  not 
work  and  the  soil  is  not  cultivated  ;  but  it  is  a  “  fallacy  ”  to  suppose 
that  well  grown  trees  in  full  vigour,  Avell  rooted  and  well  ripened,  are 
to  be  despised,  or  that  they  are  more  likely  to  stand  still  when  trans¬ 
planted  than  starvelings  would  be  under  similar  conditions.  And  as  to 
“faults,”  well,  Ave  all  have  them,  but  certainly  we  midlanders  do  not 
number  amongst  ours  the  application  of  100  tons  of  manure  per  acre 
to  nursery  land ;  nor  do  southerners,  who  prefer  well  grown,  sturdy 
and  thrifty  trees,  “full  of  fibre,”  to  long,  strong,  sappy  bnanches,  and 
correspondingly  long,  strong,  fibreless  roots,  for  one  condition  is  the 
complement  of  the  other.— A..  11.  Pearson,  ChiUuell,  Notts. 
[Some  delay,  unavoidable  under  the  circumstances,  has  occurred 
in  the  publication  of  this  rejoinder  to  the  article  on  page  189, 
March  9th,  to  which  interested  readers  may  advisably  refer.  We 
may  say  a  word  on  one  or  two  points.  (1)  We  should  be  surprised  if 
IMr.  Luckhurst  described  himself  as  a  “  Professor,”  but  not  in  the 
least  if  the  authors  of  published  announcements  should  do  so  to 
arrest  attention,  as  the  habit  is  not  uncommon.  (2)  In  many 
conversations  with  Mr.  Luckhurst  Ave  have  never  heard  him  say  any¬ 
thing  to  the  effect  that  “  trees  from  the  South  are  the  only  ones 
Avorth  having ;  ”  but  we  have  heard  him  combat  alleged  local  opinion 
that  trees  from  the  South  Avould  not  succeed  in  the  North.  (3)  We 
know  of  trees  from  the  Midlands  and  the  North  succeeding  admirably 
in  the  South,  and  trees  from  the  South  flourishing  equally  well  in  the 
Lorth.  We  also  knoAv  of  failures  of  southern  trees  both  North  and 
South,  and  northern  trees  both  South  and  North.  So  does  Mr.  Pearson. 
So  does  Mr.  Luckhurst.  So  do  many  gardeners,  and  not  a  few 
nurserymen.  It  is  pitiable  to  see  thousands  of  good  trees  spoiled  by 
the  blunders  of  incompetent  planters,  pruners,  and  neglectors.  It  is 
not  less  pitiable  to  see  so  many  worthless  trees  planted — cheap  “culls,” 
that  ought  to  be  burned.  We  could  buy  100  of  such  trees  in  an 
hour,  the  residue  of  hundreds  more  which  have  been  exposed  root  and 
branch  to  the  weather  for  the  past  three  weeks.  Mr.  Luckhurst  has 
proved  his  2X)int,  that  he  can  groAv  southern  trees  in  Derbyshire,  but 
he  did  not  prove  the  failure  of  midland  trees  in  the  same  plot,  because 
the  whole  of  those  planted  Avere  procured  from  the  South,”  and  Mr. 
Pearson  is  fully  entitled  to  the  insertion  of  his  letter  ] 
Kose  Shoav  Fixtures  in  1899. 
June. 
14th  (Wednesday). — Yorkf. 
24th  (Saturday). — Windsor. 
27th  (Tuesday). — Westminster  (N.P.S.). 
28th  (Wednesday). — Bath,  Maidstone,  and  Croydon.  t' 
29th  (Thurday). — Canterbury,  Eltham,  and  Norwich. 
July. 
1st  (Saturday). — Crystal  Palace  (N.Pi.S.). 
4th  (Tuesday). — Gloucester  and  HarroAv. 
5th  (Wednesday). — Ealing  and  Hanley^. 
6th  (Thursday). — Colchester  (N.R.S). 
11th  (Tuesday). — Hereford  and  Woverhamptonf. 
13  th  (Thursday). — BrentAvood  and  Helensburgh. 
20th  (Thursday). — Salterhebble. 
25  th  (Tuesday). — Tibshelf. 
Shows  lasting  tAvo  days,  f  Shows  lasting  three  days. 
The  above  are  all  the  dates  definitely  decided  upon  that  have  as 
yet  reached  me.  I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  the  fixtures  of  any  Rose 
shows  not  named  above,  or  those  of  any  horticultural  exhibitions  Avhere 
Roses  are  made  a  leading  feature,  for  insertion  in  future  lists. — 
Edward  Maavley,  Eosebanlc,  Berkhamsted,  Herts. 
Rose  Notes — Pruning. 
“  SuY-GROAViNG  A^arieties  must  never  be  hard  pruned,  as  there  is  a 
possibility  of  cripptling  them.”  Such  is  the  dictum  ot  “  Rosarian  ”  on 
page  237  of  the  Journal  of  Horticulture  of  23rd  ult.  “  When  doctors 
disagree,  Avho  shall  decide  ?  ”  Let  me  give  tiie  opinion  of  a  feAv  of 
our  most  eminent  Ro.-e  surgeons, 
1,  The  Rev.  H.  B.  Biron  writes  in  “  The  Gardener  ” — “  The  weak 
growers  cannot  be  pruned  too  closely.” 
2,  Rev.  A.  Foster- Melliar,  in  his  exhaustive  paper  read  at  the 
National  Rose  Conference,  held  in  July,  1889,  speaks  of  Avhat  he 
terms  the  “golden  rule”  in  pruning.  Here  are  tiis  words.  “The 
next  question  is  hoAV  many  buds  are  to  be  kept  on  each  shoot  retained, 
and  the  answer  is  to  be  found  in  the  golden  rule  of  pruning — that 
more  buds  are  to  be  left  on  each  shoot  in  proportion  as  the  plant,  both 
as  a  variety  and  an  individual,  is  strong,  and  less  in  2'>roportion  as  it 
is  iceah  (the  italics  are  mine).  To  a  novice  in  Rose  growing  it 
appears  strange  at  first  that  we  should  cut  away  almost  all  there  is 
left  of  a  weakly  growing  and  precious  variety,  Avhich  would  seem  to 
be  almost  exterminated  by  such  severity,  and  yet  leave  longer  shoots 
on  a  strong  sort;  which  seems  better  able  to  withstand  the  rough 
treatment ;  but  the  rule  is,  nevertheless,  in  strict  accordance  Avith 
the  law  of  Nature,  Darwin’s  survival  of  the  fittest,  and  the  laAV  of 
God — ‘  Whosoever  hath,  to  him  shall  be  given.’  ” 
3,  Mr.  George  Paul  says — “  Moderate  growing  Roses  should  be 
pruned  closely.” 
4,  Mr.  Thos.  Rivers’  opinion  is  as  folloAvs: — “The  majority  of 
people  do  not  understand  the  object  aimed  at  in  pruning.  Roses 
should  be  cut  back  according  to  strength  of  shoots  or  variety.  The 
stronger  they  are  the  longer  they  may  be  left.” 
These  four  opinions  of  such  eminent  specialists  must  surely  suffice 
to  combat  the  soundness  of  “  Rosarian’s”  oavu  judgment. 
Catalogue  Incongruities. 
The  question  of  pruning  leads  on  to  another  closely  allied  to  it. 
What  is  meant  by  vigorous,  robust,  and  moderate  or  dwarf  groAving 
Roses  ?  This  is  only  written  for  novices. 
The  vigorous  and  robust  are  perfectly  distinct  in  growth  and  habit; 
the  dAvarf,  or  moderate,  differ  from  both. 
Among  the  vigorous  I  might  name  the  habits  of  such  as  Dupuy 
Jamain,  Abel  Carriere,  Charles  LefebAwe,  and  Duke  of  Edinburgh. 
The  robust  would  be  represented  by  such  varieties  as  Baroness 
Rothschild  and  her  marvellous  white  daughter,  Merveille  de  Lyon, 
Etienne  Levet,  Marquise  de  Castellane,  and  perhaps  Marchioness  of 
Londonderry. 
Among  the  moderate  we  find  E.  Y.  Teas,  Gustave  Pigaueau,  Xavier 
Olibo,  and  Monsieur  Nomau. 
Yet  what  do  I  find  in  a  catalogue,  one  issued  by  a  very  large  firm  ? 
I  find  the  ibllowing  Roses  described  as  vigorous — Augustine  Guiuois- 
seau,  Monsieur  Noman,  Baroness  Rothschild,  Captain  Christy,  Duke 
of  Wellington,  Emilie  Hausberg,  Etienne  Levet,  Gustave  Piganeau, 
Xavier  Olibo,  and  Louis  Yan  Houtte  ;  Avhile  Her  Majesty  is  dubbed  a 
“  bad  grower.”  I  think  that  when  I  read  in  this  nurseryman’s 
