Vermont State Horticultural Society 29 



grafted plants should be placed with the bud or graft about two 

 inches below the surface of the soil. 



If very choice blossoms are desired remove all but the 

 terminal bud on each shoot. This system, know as disbudding, 

 is necessarily practiced by all commercial establishments in order 

 to obtain the required length of stem. By leaving all the buds 

 one may obtain a larger number of much smaller blooms and 

 lengthen the duration of the flowering season somewhat. 



Pruning is one of the most important features connected 

 with rose culture and practical experience alone will enable one 

 to determine just what to do in each individual case and just 

 how to do it. 



All plants coming from the open ground should be pruned 

 before planting or just afterwards, as is done in transplanting 

 trees. The yearly pruning may be done in early spring or late 

 fall, the former being preferable, if done before the sap starts. 

 A partial trimming back of the long branches is desirable in the 

 fall to prevent their whipping about in strong winds. The chief 

 objects of pruning are the formation of a symmetrical plant and 

 the production of strong flower buds. In pruning for quality, 

 as our foremost growers do, plants of delicate habit and tender 

 growth are cut back severely, leaving only three or four eyes 

 on a stalk. Vigorous growing varieties are left with six or 

 eight eyes and the branches are thinned out. If they should be 

 pruned as severely as the more delicate sorts, a great growth 

 would result with but comparatively few flower buds. 



Climbing varieties should be only sparingly cut back, it 

 being sufificient to shorten in the too vigorous shoots and cut 

 back the laterals to two eyes. 



With many Remontants it is beneficial to prune slightly as 

 soon as the first blossoming is past in order to aid in the forma- 

 tion of the later flower buds. 



The method of pruning in general use is based on quantity 

 rather than quality, and exhausts the plant by over cropping. 

 Far better 15 or 20 first class blooms than 40 or 50 inferior 

 ones. Close or severe pruning makes plants more resistant to 

 insects or diseases by producing strong, vigorous wood even on 

 very old plants, and they may be grown for many years, pro- 

 vided they are taken up and root-pruned once in 6 or 7 years. 



For winter protection draw up the soil about 12 or 15 inches 

 or better still, cover the bed with a mulch of straw and manure a 

 foot deep. In this way the roots are perfectly protected and as 

 much of the stalks as it is desirable to save. A bed of small 

 varieties may be protected by a sectional frame as already men- 

 tioned. 



