Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/771

Rh amount of correct pruning will improve a rose bush that has been badly planted or placed in'a quite unsuitable position. Where dwarf beds of roses are required, a good plan is to peg down to within about 6 in. from the ground the strong one-yearold shoots from the root. In due time blooming shoots break out from nearly every eye, and masses of flowers are secured, while strong young shoots are thrown up from the centre, the plant being on its own roots. Before winter sets in, the old shoots which have thus flowered and exhausted themselves are cut away, and three or four or more of the strongest and best ripened young shoots are reserved for pegging down the following season, which should be done about February. In the meantime, after the pruning has been effected, plenty of good manure should have been dug in lightly about the roots. Thus treated, the plants never fail to produce plenty of strong wood for pegging down each succeeding season. The most troublesome fungoid pest of the rose is undoubtedly the mildew (Sphoerotheca pannosa). The young shoots, leaves and flower-buds frequently become covered with a delicate white mycelium, which by means of the suckers it sends into the underlying cells robs its host of considerable amounts of food, and causes the leaves to curl and fall early. The spores are produced in great abundance and carried by animals and the wind to other plants, and so the disease is rapidly spread. Later the mycelium increases and forms a thick velvet coating on the young shoots, and in this the winter state of the flungus is produced. Spraying with potassium sulphide (1 oz. to 2 to 3 gallons of water) is the best means of checking the spread of the disease. The rose rust (Phragmidtum subcorticatum) appears on both cultivated and wild roses in the spring, bursting through the bark in the form of copious masses of orange powder consisting of the spores of the fungus. These spores infect the leaves, and produce on them in the summer small dots of an orange colour and, later, groups of spores that are able to live through the winter. The last, the teleutospores, are of a dark colour, and it is by these that the disease is started in the spring. It is therefore important that all the affected leaves should be destroyed in the autumn, and the bushes should be sprayed with Bordeaux mixture or ammonia cal copper carbonate in the spring to prevent the infection of the leaves by spores brought from a distance. Many other fungi attack the rose, but perhaps the only other one.that merits mention here is Actinonema Rosae. This attacks the leaves, forming large dark blotches upon them and frequently causing them to fall prematurely.

A very large number of insect pests are found upon the rose, but the best known and most formidable on account of their great powers of reproduction are the aphides. More than one species is found upon the rose, though Aphis Rosae is the commonest. Their attack should be checked by the use of a spray made by boiling 4 oz. quassia chips for an hour or so in a gallon of soft water, straining off the solution and dissolving therein 4 oz. of soft soap while it is still warm, afterwards adding I or 2 gallons of soft water according to the age of the rose leaves that are to be sprayed. Any delay in dealing with the pest gives the opportunity for its increase, even a day being sufficient materially to augment their numbers. The larvae of some of the Tortrix moths fold the leaves almost as soon as they are developed from the bud, and do considerable damage in this way and by devouring the leaves, while several “looper" cateignllars are also found feeding on the foliage. Many species of saw- y larvae are also known to attack the rose, feeding either upon the leaves or devouring the young shoot. These larvae should be carefully searched for and destroyed whenever found. One of the leaf-cutting bees, Megachtle, cuts pieces out of the leaves with which to line its nest, materially reducing their effective surface. The bees may be caught in a butterfly net or traced to their nests, which should be destroyed.,

For further information see the late Dean Hole's Book about Roses (1894); Book of the Rose, by Rev. A. Foster Mellias (1905); Beautiful Roses for Garden and Greenhouse, by I. Weathers (1903); and Roses, then History, Development and Cultivation, by the Rev. J. H. Pemberton (1908).

ROSEBERY, ARCHIBALD PHILIP PRIMROSE, 5TH EARL or (1847–), British statesman, born in London on the 7th of May 1847, was the grandson and successor to the title of Archibald John Primrose, 4th earl of Rosebery (1783–1868), a representative peer of Scotland, who was in 1828 created a peer of the United Kingdom as Baron Rosebery, and was an active supporter of the Reform Bill. The Scottish earldom was first conferred in 1703 upon the 4th earl's great-grandfather, Archibald Primrose of Dalmeny (1664–1723), a staunch Whig and a commissioner for the Union. The 5th earl's mother was Catherine Lucy Wilhelmina, only daughter of Philip Henry, 4th Earl Stanhope; she was thus a sister of Earl Stanhope, the historian, and a niece of Lady Hester Stanhope, who was the niece of William Pitt. A celebrated beauty, a maid of honour and bridesmaid of Queen Victoria, she married, on the 20th of December 1843, Archibald, Lord Dalmeny (1809–1851), member for the Stirling Burghs, who became a lord of the admiralty under Melbourne. After his death she became the wife of Harry George Vane, 4th duke of Cleveland, and died in 1901.

The young Lord Dalmeny was educated at Brighton and at Eton, where he had as slightly junior contemporaries Mr A. I. Balfour and Lord Randolph Churchill. He was described by the most brilliant Eton tutor of his day, William Johnson Cory (author of Ionica), as a “portentously wise youth, not, however, deficient in fun.” He added that Dalmeny “desired the palm without the dust.” In 1866 he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, but went down in 1868, by the request of the dean, rather than abandon the possession of a small racing stud. In the same year he succeeded to the earldom and to the family estates. In February 1871 he seconded the Address in the House of Lords; a more original effort followed in November 1871, when he delivered a remarkable essay on the Union of Scotland and England at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. Three years later he was elected president of the Social Science Congress at Glasgow, where, on the 30th of September, he gave a striking address upon the discovery of means for raising the condition of the working class as the “true leverage of empire.” In the meantime he travelled in the south of Europe and in North America. On his return he acquired an English country house called The Durdans, Epsom, which he largely rebuilt and adorned with some of the finest turf portraits of George Stubbs. Following the example, as he declared, of Oliver Cromwell (for whom he showed an admiration in other respects-culminating in 1900 in the erection of a statue outside Westminster Hall, which was not appreciated either by the Irish Nationalist party or by others among his political associates), he took a pride in owning racehorses, and afterwards won the Derby three times, in 1894, 1895 and 1905. He was the first man to enjoy the distinction of winning the Derby while prime minister; but though this was popular enough among many classes, it did not please the Liberal Nonconformists so much, who considered a racehorse a mere gambling-machine. On the 20th of March 1878 Lord Rosebery married Hannah, only child of Baron Meyer Amschel de Rothschild, of Mentmore, Bucks. The newly married couple took a lease of Lansdowne House, which for several years was a salon for the Liberal party and a centre of hospitality for a much wider circle.

Though impeded in his political career by his exclusion from the House of Commons, Lord Rosebery's reputation as a social reformer and orator was steadily growing. In 1878 he was elected Lord Rector of Aberdeen and in 1880 of Edinburgh University, where he gave an eloquent address upon Patriotism. In 1880 he entertained Mr Gladstone at Dalmeny, and during the “Mid Lothian campaign” he had much to do with the stage-management of the demonstrations. As was shown later, he imported into his view of politics a Warm sentiment and an imaginative outlook; and he was an enthusiastic student of Lord Beaconsf1eld's political novels, more particularly of Sybil, after the heroine in which he named one of his daughters. In August 1881 he became undersecretary at the Home Office, his immediate chief being Sir William Harcourt. His work was practically confined to the direction of the Scottish department of the Office. A clamour was nevertheless raised in regard to the incompatibility of the under-secretaryship with a position in the House of Lords, and Lord Rosebery resigned the post in June 1883. He and his wife utilized the interval to make a trip round the world, being most warmly received in Australia, and returning by way of India. At the close of 1884 he resumed office as first commissioner of works with a seat in the cabinet, and his adherence carried with it a distinct accession of strength to the Liberal ministry, which was much discredited by the tragedy attached to the fate of Gordon. The attitude of the government on the Afghan question and generally in regard to Russia was held by many to have been perceptibly stiffened owing to Lord Rosebery's influence.