MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 39 
Soil—Roses usually do well in any good garden soil, but 
better results are obtained if considerable care is exercised 
in the preparation of the ground. Roses require a heavy, 
well-drained soil. To obtain this, the area to be used for a 
bed should be dug out to a depth of from eighteen inches 
to two feet and if the drainage is not good another six inches 
should be removed and this space filled with broken stone, 
brick, or old flower pots. Upon this porous stratum six 
inches of well-rotted cow manure should be placed and 
finally sufficient heavy soil to finish the bed, raising it not 
more than three inches above the surrounding grade. This 
latter layer should, if possible, be top-soil (including sod) 
from an old pasture. After making the bed, it should be 
allowed to settle for a week before the planting is begun. 
Planting.—Roses may be set out either in the fall or in 
the spring. The spacing depends very largely upon the 
variety; tea and hybrid tea varieties may be planted about 
eighteen inches apart, but hybrid a etuals, on account of 
their more vigorous growth, should be spaced at least two 
and one-half feet. In either case an eight-inch margin from 
the edge of the bed should be allowed. Where potted stock 
is being planted, the ball of earth should be placed with its 
upper surface about two inches below the soil; field grown 
. stock may be set two or three inches lower than its former 
position in the nursery. The holes for receiving the plants 
should be large enough to admit the stock without bendin 
or crowding the roots. The soil should be firmly pack 
around the roots, and the plants thoroughly watered im- 
mediately after planting. All stock should be so pruned 
that but two or three buds remain on each shoot—the upper 
bud, in each case, pointing outward. 
Varieties to Plant—Rose stock may be either grown on 
its own roots, grafted, or budded. It may be well in this 
connection, however, to call attention to certain disadvan- 
tages which attach to budded stock. In general, budded 
stock is more easily killed in severe winters than is stock 
grown on its own roots, and in addition the shoots which 
invariably spring from the parent stock frequently suppress 
the scion unless cut away. 
Of the four or five thousand varieties of roses at present 
on the market, some growers list as many as eight hundred, 
but of these only a few grow to perfection in this latitude. 
As the result of tests in Garden from the standpoint of 
perfection of blooms, profuse flowering, and gene: hardi- 
ness, the following list of varieties has been prepared as 
being particularly desirable for planting in St. Louis and 
