The articles of Mr. F. Harms and Dr. Ludwig Fritsch seem to indicate that they consider some of our American florists a bad lot of men indeed - when they, our "Yankee Garden Barnums," deliberately with malice aforethought and with the intention of cheating, gave an old rose a new name to enable them to impose it on their innocent customers at exorbitant prices. The Doctor and Mr. Harms have, of course, never heard of worthless new varieties and of old varieties being palmed off on American gardeners by European Barnums.

Now, what are the facts in the case? My understanding is that the American Beauty Rose stood some six or eight years in Mr. Bancroft's garden in Washington, D. C.; no one knew from whence it came nor any name for it; no American florist ever claimed to have raised it or to know who raised it; the chances were that it might be a known rose with a name, although no one about Washington knew it. It was found to possess superior qualities, and presumed to be a chance seedling, and the name of American Beauty was given to it. The name of Madame Ferdinand Jamain had been in our catalogues for some time, but the description of it was not such to induce an amateur who had only room for a limited number of plants to buy it.

I bought a plant of the "American Beauty " at a big price. I know that the florist from whom I bought my plant honestly believed it to be a new rose.

Is there not a great similarity in some roses? Some I can only tell apart by their leaves; others are so much alike that I cannot tell them apart.

Is Mr. Harms sure that the American Beauty is the Madame Ferdinand Jamain? Even he may be mistaken as to their identity.

Mr. Gustav Drobisch told me that he had the Madame Ferdinand Jamain for years - that it is of weaker growth and lighter color than the American Beauty, and that anybody who is at all familiar with roses could readily distinguish one from the other. For the benefit of Dr. Fritsch I will say that Mr. Drobisch is a "true gardener," one of the leading florists of Columbus, Ohio, who has been continuously from childhood up a gardener and florist, and that his testimony is entitled to and will receive as much credence from a fair and impartial jury as that of Mr. Harms; at the same time admitting that few men, if any, have more experience in the propagation and cultivation of roses than Mr. Harms.

Whether the American Beauty is an old or a new variety, I consider it quite an acquisition, not because of its superior forcing qualities, of which Mr. Dunning speaks and of which I know nothing, but because it is a hardy rose with slight protection, is nearly always in bloom through the summer and autumn. When it is well known that most of our so called hybrid perpetuals or remontant roses bloom only once, like June roses, it is strange that this blooming quality was not discovered in Mad. Ferdinand Jamain, if it possesses it. For comparative hardiness and constant blooming I consider La France and Glory de Dijon best and American Beauty next best, for an amateur without a greenhouse.

I wish that you or some of your readers who are able to do so would tell me how to protect tea roses out doors in winter in Central or Southern Ohio, so as to keep not only the roots but most of the tops fresh and alive.

I was very much disappointed in the Bennett last year, but it lived so well out doors through last winter - fully as well as La France - and, although a very slow grower, has had so many roses, and some very fine this year, that I have become an admirer of it.

I think the American Beauty has an origin similar to the "Nameless Beauty." Mr. Max Deegen, of Kostritz, found it among a lot of roses which he had bought; it had no name, but it was a superior rose. Mr. Deegen tells us all he knows about it, and calls it the "Namenlose SchOne." I bought a plant of it last April at a good price, and find it a fine rose, but if it should turn out some day that it is an old rose under a new name, I do not think that I would be justified in calling Mr. Deegen a swindler or Garden Barnum. I would think that he was laboring under an honest mistake when he made an " old beauty become young again" by daubing it with a new name.

Southern Ohio.