149 



EOSES EOE THE MILLION. 



There is just enough of difficulty in the 

 cultivation of the rose to attract the ardent 

 spirits of the horticultural world, as all 

 difficult enterprises attract those who are 

 able to cope with them, and at the same 

 time the difficulties are so easily surmount- 

 able that the most timid need not be 

 alarmed. With the queen of flowers we 

 associate remembrances of green-fly, mil- 

 dew, sudden death, for highest beauty is 

 soonest assailed by corroding influences, 

 and all that's fair soonest fades, unless 

 hedged about with protection from the 

 evil. There are many subjects that engage 

 our attention on which we divide opinions 

 as to then* merit, but there can be no divi- 

 sion on the merits of the rose ; it stands 

 at the head of the list among the adorn- 

 ments of the garden, and we look with 

 little less, perhaps with more, delight on 

 the cottager's clumps of maiden blush and 

 Provence and cabbage-roses than on the 

 prince's mixture of teas, and Bengals, and 

 hybrid perpetual. I will not now say a 

 word as to the species or varieties, because 

 the business at this season is the propaga- 

 tion of those we have, and to discuss the 

 several merits of the classes, and their bo- 

 tanical and floral distinctions, as fully as 

 the subject deserves, would lead us away 

 from the one important topic of the mo- 

 ment. This season roses are really in good 

 condition ; the long-continued rains which 

 have made verbenas black, and geraniums 

 brown, and petunias of no colour at all, has 

 given a vigour to the roses such as they 

 • have not had at the same time of year for 

 a long time past. Geant des Batailles and 

 a few others of the same section are a little 

 mildewed, but in our own experience not 

 a single fly has yet been seen, and, as for 

 the maggot, though it broke out in its 

 usual force at the first start of the summer- 

 growth, the ordinary method of dealing 

 with it proved effectual, and the few buds 

 lost could be spared as a thinning for the 

 benefit of those that were untouched. 



I am compelled to suppose the reader 

 knows how to perform the operation of 

 budding. It cannot be taught in the first 

 instance by any book ; it must be seen at 

 least once, and after that a little reading 

 on the subject will be profitable as a means 

 of improvement, and the novice will begin 

 to appreciate what writers say as to the 

 value of this or that mode of operation. 

 Now is the time to begin the work of bud- 

 iug on stocks of all kinds. The sooner the 

 buds are entered the sooner will they start, 



and they ought to make good shoots before 

 the autumn closes, so as to be hard enough 

 to endure any degree of frost and rain dur- 

 ing winter. From frequent observation, I 

 am satisfied it matters not from what sort 

 of wood we take the bud, whether from a 

 flowering shoot or the growth of the sea- 

 son, provided the bud itself is of the right 

 sort — plump enough to be visible, not 

 plump enough to be on the point of open- 

 ing into leaves, and the bark about it so 

 full of sap as to separate easily from the 

 wood of the shield. There is this advan- 

 tage in working roses on strong stocks, 

 that we get blooms the next season, and, 

 if the culture is thoroughly liberal, one 

 season's growth from the bud is enough to 

 make respectable heads, and amongst a lot 

 budded now a large number will be fit to 

 plant in the rosery next February. On 

 their own roots they need another year to 

 make a similar effect, and thus, by using 

 foster roots, we steal a march on time. 

 Now, as to the process of budding, roses 

 differ among themselves as men do ; some 

 are tractable, and some are stubborn. 

 Jules Margottin will give good buds from 

 the end of June to the middle of October, 

 but Aimee Vibert will never give a bud 

 such as a beginner can handle with safety. 

 If you cannot remove the wood from the 

 shield by a neat action of the thumb-nail 

 or the back of the point of the budding- 

 knife — the nail being the best — let the wood 

 remain, and make of it a summer graft, 

 in the same method as inserting a bud. 

 Through not knowing this practice, or not 

 thinking of it at the time of operating, 

 many amateurs fail with roses that make 

 thin wood and wiry buds, whereas, by re- 

 taining the wood, the difficulty is at an end, 

 and you may work such a rose while the 

 bud is invisible, especially after heavy 

 rains, when the stocks are full of sap and 

 ready to nourish them forthwith. Another 

 point to be remembered in using plump 

 buds from shoots of the season, the shields 

 of which perhaps are very soft, is this, that 

 a little wood left in the eye is of no conse- 

 quence at all. AVhen you have peeled the 

 bud, there will be an obstinate bit of wood 

 left, to get out which will probably destroy 

 the eye altogether. You must throw that 

 away, and prepare another, which may share 

 the same fate,and,if you happen to have but 

 one plant of the variety to be propagated, 

 the whole shoot may be cut up, and the 

 chance of propagating lost for the season. 

 Peel the shield as clean as you can without 



