REVOLUTION IN ROSES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9757, 24 March 1914, Page 6

REVOLUTION IN ROSES.

(By H. B. Marriotf Watson in the Daily Mail.) Thotigh it is impossible to prove the primality of the rose of time, oertainly it has been regarded in, all timea and Dy all nations as the queen of flowers. England, owing to the oversight of her neighbours, was able to idefrt the rose as her. emblem, but it is evident from a oontcmpfetibnof tho Tudor rose thiit Hie.Original fldfrfer w4s very different from its modern descendant, It, is odd to reflect, that the rose our. ancestors loved and sang was probably little more specialised than the hf'dge-rose. In Shakespeare's . time, certairily, ' the Provehcc or cabbage the moas tose were grown. But little pvo-gi-css in the rose garden was tlfiade until the ninetwnth century, wfeen the secret of hybridisation discovered.' let. it is not too much to j6l aim that there has-been as great a revolution in roses dur* ing the past twenty as in all previous trine. Twenty years ago the rose was a i ,o° l l rlte out by no means the glorified • fltiwer of to-dsiy. It wfcidd' have byen possible to reckon really excellent va-nc-ties in a dozen or two names. We garden lovers stuck to the old-fashion and welltned friends, and grew roses gather for the border than the bed, rather for decoration than as specimens." A rOsarian the calibre of Deah Hole could declare quite honestly that if he were condemned to have one rose only for tho rest of his life he would select Gloire 3e Dijon. No one nowadays think* of growing Gloire de jlJijon save as a to sentiment. In those day* of Which I spieak the General vvas the most admired of dark reds. Ihe General is still 'grown, and is- atill a market rose"; but its reign is long since over, and its place has been usurped bv a score of others—Liborto, Richmond, Hugh Dicicson, General Macarthur, for example. THE STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY. It was from France that the fiist modest efforts at hybridisation reached us, as many of those old names still surviving in the borders remind us —Senateur Vaisse, Alfred tolomb, Xavier Olibo. Charles Lefebre. Jiut in the sixties our English and Irish growers took a hand, and began to rival the trench nurseries. Twenty years ago th? two nations wore fighting hard for priority. To-day all is changed. Germany and America have invaded the arena, and we get. some of out best roses from those countrie/. How could we do without Liberty, or Richmond, or Frau Karl Druschki. whose sole fault is her "scentless breath," or Kaieerin Augusta Victoria? Yet trance must still be regarded in the very front of roso-producers. It \va» fr.jm t ranoe that the famous Lyon rose came. and from France more recently the rose which won the Daily Mail Cup. Among the changes that the laet two decades have offected must be noted the almost total stoppage of the supply of hybrid pcrpetuals. leas arc still produced year by year, but it is the hybrid 'teas that the vast accessions come. With this inordinate increase in hybrid teas goes a phenomenon which seems to bo &o-re!ated. alas! and that is tlie tendency towards scentlessneas. When wo find a modern rose fragrant, what an exquisite delight.' The heart goes out in a gush of gratitude, and one recalls the sweet, fragrance of old forgotten flowers in the old forgotten gardens, where the white moss bloomed and the cabbage and tho damask rose expressed their perfume on the air. What was it first dried up tho delicate sweet oils of the rose? I do not know if an answer l>e possible, but I am disposed to refer tho pcentlcssnees of the modern to a strain of the celebrated "Baroness. How much more beautiful would be the still beautiful Mrs Sharman Crawford if she had hot inherited this lack ! As a rule it ii in the red roses that the fragrance still lingers; but all daughters of La France have an exquisite perfume, as witness my Lady Ashvown and Augustin Guinosseau.

FRAGRANCE OUT OF FASHION. Fragrance is riot a "show" point, and hence is being rapidly eliminated from our roses. One would like to make an appeal to the National Rose Society to take fragrance into consideration in the "pointing ' of roses. At present, we are cultivating exquisite colour and perfect shape at the expense o& perfume. There is no whiff of the rose garden from the show benches. One cannot fail also to be struck by the rapid increase in the number of cltinbers during the last, twenty years. Where there was a score once there are hundreds now. They .are a most surprising, apd also refreshing. feature of "the eclogues— these climbers, polvanthas, weepers, and wichuraiana*. Personally, I have a great, predilection for the single rose. Anemone Sinica, not known nearly so well as. it should bo. It should be pegged down on banks, which it v\nl clothe from quite carlv in the season with the constantly recurrent huge pink blossoms. But it is impracticable in these days of profusion and multiplicity to do more than indicate a preference out of what must be an imperfect experience. I have personally grown considerably over a hundred varieties of the rose, and, of course, have seen very many more. Bu 1 I am quite prepared to find-that there are plenty of roses unknown to me as good as, or even letter than, my favourites. How is it possible to keep pace with the new-comers ? ror the year 1911 I counted quite eighty new varieties, and most of these have eome to stay." FAVOURITE ROSES. ' ' If I were to make a list of my favourites I should fill this column. Moreover, it would bo presumptuous. But 1 should like to name a few modern roses which no selfrespecting garden should be without. There is, of course, the J.yon rose, with its unmatched colour.' Mme. A. Chatenay (which the market franklv designates "Chutney"), Killarney, Hugh Dickson, Richmond. Frau Karl Druechki. Mrs D. McKee (whioh has the remarkable gift of growing in fragrance and colour as it lades). Mine". J. Gillemot, Mme. Ravarv, Georges Narbonnand, Lady Ashtown, Mme. n General Macarfhur, Lady Hillingdon, Duchess of Westminster. Mrs W. J. Grant, Mrs Shannon Crawford. Caroline Tostout. and Antoine Rivoire. . I only shut down because I am reaching the end of the column. I have before me a rose book, published in 1894 by a well-known and enthusiastic giower, in which he offers a selection of tho twelve beet hybrid teas. Of these three have dropped out of the catalogues, and four only would be now considered of first-class importance. But without exception the twelve are fragrant. Alas! if 1 drew up a list at this moment of best hybrid teas it would contain at least six un seen ted ca nd ida t es. If I want fragrance to-day it is not to mv beds I go. but. rather to the edge of h\bnd Rugosas, where the Ramanas skill has-raised irom Japanese stocks by cross fertilisation, tower six feet high, and waft perfumed air through the summer dav like those old roses of our forefathers.