i88i.] ROSES ON THEIR OWN ROOTS. 7 



Lacharme does not come every year. Yet there seems quite a glut of 

 first -class Roses enumerated in every catalogue — there is, indeed, 

 enough to satisfy the greatest craving for variety. Some of the oldest 

 Roses still appear in the catalogues, and to our taste are preferable 

 to very many of the newest. We do not refer to the Provence and 

 Gallica Roses, but to the various Hybrid Roses. William Griffiths, 

 Paul Ricaut, Coupe d'Hebe, Souvenir de la Malmaison, Mrs Bosan- 

 quet, Devoniensis, were familiar names almost scores of years ago, and 

 still they are to the front. What we would like to call attention to 

 at present, with respect to this subject of Roses, is the desirability of 

 cultivating them on their own roots, more especially such old Roses as 

 we have mentioned, and also some of the middle-aged ones, so to 

 speak, — such as Victor Verdier, Paul Neron, General Jacqueminot, 

 Jules Margottin, and many more. These are old classics, like Currer 

 Bells or Waverleys — names which resist time. Our taste in this matter 

 may be peculiar. We have always pitied the poor Rose perched on a 

 4-foot stilt, chained like a parrot to a pole — and also the Rose, as a 

 dwarf, grafted to the gross Manetti stock ; the former seems to say 

 buy, buy, buy — the latter, die, die, die. If any one wants to plant 

 Roses for posterity, then plant them on their own roots. If you are 

 a tenant at will, subject to eviction, and cannot take your Roses with 

 you, then plant them on the Manetti, or on the Brier, which is the 

 better of the two. Very recently we saw rather an extensive rosary 

 entirely (or nearly so) of plants on their own roots — fine, strong bushes, 

 and comprising many of the comparatively newer sorts. They were 

 selected and planted by a genuine rosarian and gardener, on his own 

 ground, for himself and. his posterity. This was not accomplished in 

 a year, but was the work of years of patience, the object kept steadily 

 in view until it became an accomplished fact. If we had the planting 

 of a rosary of our own to-day, we should plant nothing but Roses on 

 their own roots. All the varieties really worth growing can now be 

 obtained from the leading Rose-growers on their own roots, at a slight 

 advance in price on those worked on the Manetti. With the mulch- 

 ing of manure which should always be on the Rose-beds in winter, 

 there need be no fear of the hardest frosts. Dryness at the root is the 

 greatest enemy of the Rose. Under whatever circumstances, a gravelly 

 soil, a hot, dry situation, is, in short, starvation. You can starve your 

 Rose on its own roots ; but with cow-manure and the water-pipe, its 

 cultivation is possible on any soil. We have never seen better Roses 

 than those grown on pure peat, manured heavily with cow-dung on a 

 siliceous subsoil. Roses are not obtained from cuttings like Gera- 

 niums or Gooseberries — unless it be China or Hybrids of the China 

 Roses, of which there are many — but are with the greatest ease propa- 

 gated by budding or grafting ; consequently the easy plan is the most 

 in fav^our, and the propagation by cuttings or layers is neglected — yet 

 the latter process is easy and successful. The hardest-wooded Prov- 



