I/O 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[June, 



effected by seeds and cuttings. Cuttings, if 

 taken off at a joint and placed in sand in gentle 

 bottom heat, will soon take root, and if the young 

 plants are potted off as soon as rooted, and liber- 

 ally treated, nice flowering specimens will soon be 

 obtained. If we desire to increase the plants by 

 means of seeds, which by the way are freely pro- 

 duced — they should be sown as early as possible, 

 about the first of January, and flowering plants 

 will be obtained the coming summer. Sow the 

 seeds thinly, placing the eye down, in a well 

 drained pot or pan of light rich soil and place in 

 a warm, moist situation, and as soon as the young 

 plants are strong enough to handle, carefully re- 

 move them into three-inch pots similarly prepared, 

 then place them in a warm, moist situation, and 

 use all available means to obtain as strong plants 

 as possible before they are planted outside. 



The generic name is derived from " erythros," 

 red, the color of the flowers, and the specific in 

 allusion to the fancied resemblance the flowers 

 bear in form and color to the comb of a cock. 



Queens, L. I., New York. 



FLOWERING OF THE SUNSET ROSE. 



BY F. F. SMITH. 



I notice in May number remarks by Mr. A. Wil- 

 liams on Sunset Rose and blind wood. I have two 

 thousand plants of this (with me) valuable rose 

 in beds and in pots. I find it in habit of bloom and 

 growth identical with Perle des Jardins. The buds 

 are better keepers. It is my opinion that the 

 " blind wood " is a natural result of too low 

 temperature. I have houses running east and 

 west, ICO feet in length, two-thirds of the roof 

 pitched to the south, with drop to the east of six 

 inches in the ridge pole, gutters and plates, glass 

 east ends, thus catching all the sunlight 1 can. 



Soil — sand loam fed with clay, cow manure and 

 ground bone. Soil well stirred every week, with 

 bone dust on the surface. Roses syringed every 

 morning when the sun shines, with temperature at 

 about 70°. Night temperature at 55O to 63°. 



It is my impression that it is best to take cuttings 

 from blooming shoots, of the strongest growth and 

 from the strongest plants. It is also my e.xperi- 

 ence that free budding is much enhanced if the 

 soil is not over-watered. No florist has ever 

 worked for me that uses as little water over the 

 soil as I do. I do not want my soil leached by 

 over water, or any forcing by extra heat. Con- 

 stant steady treatment gives me plenty of blooms, 

 and foliage to the ground. Normal Park, Illinois. 



THE SUNSET ROSE. 



BY PETER HENDERSON. 



In the May number, Mr. A. Williams, of 

 Sharon, Pa., says that his Sunset roses this winter 

 have shown, in a marked degree, a tendency to 

 make blind instead of flowering shoots, and asks 

 if this is not in consequence of its having been 

 propagated from blind shoots? It was formerly 

 held that to get the best results from roses, 

 plants should only be propagated from the flower- 

 ing shoots ; but few rose-growers now believe that 

 to have any influence whatever in the tendency to 

 prolific flowering, and that as a matter of fact, 

 the great majority of roses are now propa- 

 gated from blind shoots, also that as good, if not 

 better results now are obtained by our large rose- 

 growers than ever before. 



The past winter we have had about equal quan- 

 tities of Sunset and Perle des Jardins, grown both 

 in pots and planted out in benches, and the flower- 

 ing qualities of each have been almost identical — 

 both flowering profusely. Mr. Williams' complaint 

 is the first I have heard of a tendency in the "Sun- 

 set" to make blind shoots. 1 am afraid it may be 

 attributed to another cause, rather than that of 

 having been propagated from blind shoots. 



About a dozen years ago I had a bench of very 

 fine Safrano roses in excellent health, two or three 

 feet in height, that showed a tendency to run blind to 

 an unusual degree. One of the rose-growers from 

 Madison, N. J., calling one day, 1 asked him what 

 he thought was the matter. He said if I would al- 

 low him to pull up a plant he could show me. He 

 did so, and shook from the roots of the plant 

 pulled up, scores of maggots (the larvas of the 

 rose-bug). That was the first time I had seen 

 this pest. Whenever roses assume a barren con- 

 dition and are otherwise healthy, I think it will be 

 found that the larvas of the rose-bug, in most 

 cases, are sapping the vitality of the plant. 



It is possible that this may account for the bar- 

 renness of flower in Mr. Williams' "Sunsets," for 

 it certainly is not peculiar to that variety, nor do I 

 think the way it was propagated has anything to 

 do with it. The only remedy we have ever found 

 for the rose-bug is to destroy the perfect insect, 

 which is found, usually, in pairs crawling under 

 the leaves; it is not easily seen but its presence is 

 known by its cutting a semi-circular piece out of 

 the edge of the leaves. We have completely 

 eradicated them by giving our boys a dollar a 

 hundred for catching the bugs. No insecticide 

 we have ever t icd will kill the bug that docs not 



