164 THE FLORIST. 



rally flower the succeeding summer, making blooming wood the same 

 season that they are budded; but if worked with a dormant bud, they 

 naturally cannot, as they then have to form blooming wood for the 

 purpose, which does not ripen soon enough to bring flower-buds: 

 this does not, however, apply to autumnal Roses; and as it is rather 

 more satisfactory to work with a dormant bud, and the shoots if not 

 strong and healthy are apt to be killed in a severe winter, or during 

 late frosts in the spring. I think for all autumnal Roses it is safer and 

 better to wait until August, and work them with a dormant bud. The 

 operation of working with a pushing-bud is best performed in June, 

 carefully selecting those stocks, the shoots of which are strongest and 

 ripest ; and I need not add, that care must be taken to keep the wild 

 wood pinched off constantly; but not until the buds have been ascer- 

 tained to be secure. I usually cut the main shoot oiF about a foot 

 above the inserted bud; to cut it nearer might be dangerous, as the 

 shoot is apt to die down a httle distance after cutting it; and until 

 the inserted bud is well established, it is necessary to allow the stock 

 to push above the bud, in order to draw the sap past the true bud. 

 I hope I have made myself clear to your readers; the matter is, I 

 confess, a little complicated. 



I have digressed a good deal, I fear, from what I intended to be 

 the aim of this letter, which is this : I wished to call the attention of 

 such of your readers as are lovers of Roses, and wish to be independ- 

 ent of the professional grower, and make their own standards (if they 

 are not already sufficiently aware of its importance), to one great point 

 of success in making handsome and healthy trees, which is too fre- 

 quently overlooked : this is, to take care to suit the stock to the scion 

 or Rose which is to be worked on it. I have often observed with pain, 

 such Roses as Baronne Prevost and Carohne de Sansal looking un- 

 healthy, although taken care of in other respects, merely from the 

 fault of having budded them on small thin stocks totally unfitted to 

 bear such vigorous heads as these Roses delight to make, from not 

 being able to furnish the nourishment necessary for their due develop- 

 ment ; the consequence being, that they look very unhealthy, and the 

 Roses on them are small and quite out of character. The reverse of 

 this is equally painful, if not worse ; for it must strike every one as 

 absurd at the least to bud such Roses as Pauline Bonaparte, or Pom- 

 pon de St. Radegonde, on large, strong stocks; and the result is com- 

 monly deplorable : the Rose not finding vent for its vigour, exhausts 

 itself in throwing up a forest of suckers, which, however they may 

 be eradicated, ultimately prove fatal to the stock, and it dwindles 

 and dies. I therefore beg earnestly to suggest to such as are interested, 

 to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the growth and habit 

 of their different Roses before venturing to make their standards. 



Robert Proctor. 



