THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



125 



had been fully effected, and being 

 tender through having been " push- 

 ed," they are quite unfit to endure 

 the assaults of the weather in cold 

 ground, and with occasional morning 

 frosts ; and, par consequence, some of 

 them die, some stand still a few 

 weeks and then grow with vigour, 

 and some linger between life and 

 death, and are never worth the room 

 they occupy. The Manetti is a good 

 stock, but it is made the worst by 

 the system of forcing to which it is 

 subject in the nursery mode of pro- 

 pagating. The roses are manufac- 

 tured to sell, and about nine-tenths 

 of them are very different to plants 

 worked in summer-time, on stocks io 

 the open ground. When these die 

 we may blame the possessor ; when 

 death happens to the pot plants sent 

 direct from an atmosphere of 70°, 

 and warranted fit for immediate 

 planting out, we must blame the 

 system by which they are manufac- 

 tured and the strength driven out of 

 the plant by stove treatment. 



" But there are no others to be 

 got," so says the rose amateur, who 

 burns to complete his lists of selected 

 varieties, and to whom the ** new 

 roses " are as important as the new 

 fashion in bonnets to a blushing 

 belle. Unfortunately that is almost 

 true ; the new roses are hurried into 

 size for sale, and when sent out there 

 is something of a plant to look at, 

 and very often much more to look at 

 than the price would lead one to 

 expect. There the purchaser must 

 take his share of blame. The trade 

 cannot get up new roses on their 

 own roots at the price which compe- 

 tition fixes, and the hunger for cheap 

 things causes amateurs to prefer 

 plants at three to five shillings each, 

 one-third of which are scarcely worth 

 having, rather than pay a shilling or 

 so more and have plants fit for any 

 purpose, with the vigour of tneir own 

 life in them. Witn old roses the 

 only excuse for working them on 

 Manettis in a forcing temperature is 

 to produce them wholesale at a 

 cheap rate ; and without opening 

 again the question long since settled, 

 we have only to say on this subject 

 that when roses are advertised it 



should be stated what their roots 

 consist of, and before people order 

 them they should inquire what roots 

 are obtainable, and as a rule give the 

 preference, and an extra price, for 

 roses on their own bottoms. 



Stocky plants in 60 or 54 sized 

 pots are to be had all the year round, 

 and this is as good a season as any in 

 the year to plant them out for beds 

 of dwarfs, whether on their own 

 roots or Manettis. If they have been 

 pushed during the early months of 

 the year, the ground is now warm 

 enough for them to take to it at once, 

 without any long process of harden- 

 ing; and the conditions essential to 

 success are to obtain plants that have 

 filled their pots with roots, or that (if 

 worked) are healed at the junction, to 

 plant them in well-manured soil, 

 eighteen inches or two feet apart, 

 according as they are moderate or 

 robust growers, and to give them 

 plenty of water during dry weather 

 all the season. 



You remember well the disastrous 

 season of 1860, when it rained, rained, 

 rained, as if the world had been 

 doomed to suffer another deluge for 

 its sins. The first bloom of roses that 

 year was magnificent. The rain just 

 suited them ; it is evident that the 

 frequent recommendation to give 

 roses plenty of water, especially over- 

 head, is no figment of the imagination. 

 Now the work of the season among 

 roses consists first in giving them 

 abundance of water. Tne drier and 

 hotter the weather, the more are they 

 infested with fly. The more rain, or 

 the more artificial rain from hydro- 

 pult or engine, the less will they be 

 troubled with this horrible pest, and 

 if sent through the heads of standards 

 with some force, every aphis will be 

 hurled to limbo, and the bloom buds 

 will plump up by absorption, and 

 give richer and larger blooms. We 

 have advised hand-picking for the 

 grub, and never was it more needed 

 than this season. Now the enemy 

 that awaits them is fly, and though 

 water is not poison to it, plenty of 

 water and plenty of aphis rarely go 

 together ; one must give way ; and it 

 is the rose-grower's business to see 

 that the fly is kept down by a process 



