268 



THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



WHAT AEE THE NEW EOSES MADE OF ? 



Evest rose grower has an inkling to 

 try new roses. Even if tliey turn out 

 worthless there is some amount of 

 pleasure in proving them to be so ; 

 if they turn out genuine acquisitions, 

 the pleasure is, of course, tenfold. 

 There are many who practise utter 

 caution, and never venture on a new 

 rose until they have some guarantees 

 of its excellence. But both parties 

 are victims of a plague. The 

 reader thinks of the green-fly, but we 

 have not that in our minds now ; 

 that is a pest of the garden which 

 the rose-grower knows well how to 

 deal with. We do not refer to mil- 

 dew, or the mycelium of fungi, which 

 last is indeed a plague but not the 

 plague. The plague of the rose- 

 grower is the system adopted by the 

 trade in sending out new roses, three 

 fourths of which may die afew months 

 after planting and the remaining 

 fourth languish in an unenviable 

 state of ill health for months before 

 they acquire their proper vigour. Yet 

 in thesy stern to be condemned there is 

 nothing fundamentally wrong; the 

 evils are in increments of detail ; it is, 

 in fact, a good system turned upside 

 down. The method of propagating 

 is the source of the mischief. Roses 

 submit to heat in much the same 

 way as calceolarias ; that is to say, 

 they are impatient of it. But a new 

 rose is first pushed in heat to furnish 

 buds ; Manetti and Boursault stocks 

 also pushed in heat are made to re- 

 ceive those buds, and by a forcing 

 system, the bud is compelled to push 

 before the union is properly effected, 

 and the result is plants that require 

 a thorough course of nursing under 

 glass before they are fit for any pur- 

 pose, and amongst them there will be 

 many fit for no purpose whatever, 

 through the imperfect junction of 

 graft and stock. On examining new 

 roses just received from nurseries, it 

 will too often be found to be the case 

 that the "work "has made a sem- 

 blance of a head before the scar where 

 it was entered had properly healed 

 over, yet those plants were pro- 



fessedly " hardened off, "and were sup- 

 plied as quite fit for planting out. 



The rose-grower sees that he has 

 worked plants to deal with, and he 

 follows a good rule in planting them 

 with the work below the surface, in 

 order that roots may be emitted above 

 the stock from the collar of the plant. 

 But if the soil be cold or damp, or 

 the weather unfavourable, the un- 

 ripened work rots in the soil, the rose 

 perishes, the stock perhaps throws up 

 a vigorous shoot, and the grower may 

 just work it again if he chooses with 

 some good old sort already in his pos- 

 session, a weak stock being all he has 

 for his money. We are not com- 

 plaining of Manettis and Boursaults 

 for the purpose ; they are most valu- 

 able stocks for dwarf roses when 

 worked near the ground, but the rapid 

 way in which propagation is carried 

 on in order to get up stocks of new 

 roses is a cause of disappointment to 

 hundreds of amateurs — an injury to 

 the fame of the rose itself, which 

 never fails to repay good cultivation, 

 and in the end it must prove injurious 

 to the trade by rendering people over 

 cautious as to purchase of novelties, 

 A poor peat soil, a weak stock only 

 just potted up from the cutting-bed, 

 a close atmosphere, a, brisk heat, 

 spindling scions that are too weak to 

 hold'up or carry a bloom — these are 

 the priucipal elements concerned in 

 the manufacture of a new rose for 

 the market ; and is not such a system 

 the plague of the rose-grower? Of 

 course, these remarks may be turned 

 to profit by purchasers of new roses, 

 who instead of being in haste to turn 

 them out — no matter at what time of 

 the year they purchase their plants- 

 should rather give them a course of 

 careful culture under glass, get them 

 hardy and sturdy, and as soon as 

 really good shoots are formed strike 

 a few on their oion roots, and wait a 

 fair time before allowing any of them 

 to bloom. As for the trade, they can 

 do better by their purchasers by re- 

 fraining from the excesses of competi- 

 tion. Worked roses are better than 



