1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



73 



columns, no one has answered why hot water pipes 

 must be made to ascend. Hot water as well as 

 cold will travel faster going down hill. Ed. CM.] 



MARECHAL NIEL ROSES UNDER GLASS. 

 BV \V. F. MASSEV, TOWSONTOWN, MD. 



We have here a house 16x75 ^^^^> which is used 

 as a Marechal Niel rose-house. This house is 

 span-roofed, and contains five plants, two of which 

 will have to come out in the spring, as they are 

 getting too much crowded. These vines are 

 planted in one line through the center of the house, 

 and are both budded and on their own roots as 

 follows : Plant No. i is worked on Noisette, 

 Madame Longchamps. No. 2 is on its own roots, 

 as also is plant No. 3. No. 4 is worked on a 

 free-growing pink Noisette, name unknown. No. 

 5 is worked on Solfaterre. As this house has 

 become noted hereabouts for its production of 

 buds, it may be of general interest to note the 

 difference in these plants. No. i is at the 

 southwest end of the house (which runs north- 

 east and southwest), and in winter is shaded by 

 the brick gable end of the house more than the 

 others. It has made strongest growth of any, and 

 produces more bloom than any two of the others, 

 but seldom gives as many buds at Christinas, on 

 account of its position in reference to the sun at 

 that season, though its eastern bloom is usually 

 magnificent. Nos. 2 and 3 have made a fair 

 but moderate growth, but nevertheless are the 

 most unproductive plants in the house. No. 4 

 has grown splendidly, and next to No. i is the 

 most productive of all. This is our Christmas 

 plant. No. 5 has grown enormously, and though 

 in the most favorable position in the house has as 

 yet proved rather unproductive in comparison 

 with the other budded plants. These roses are 

 now in their eighth winter, and the stems of Nos. 

 I and 5 measure in circumference over twelve 

 inches each. I have never kept any account of 

 the number of buds cut in a season, but have on 

 more than one occasion cut 250 buds at one cut- 

 ting, nine-tenths of which were from the three 

 budded plants. Just now I am in a quandary. 

 The house is too full of wood, and some of the 

 plants must be removed. A gentleman in this 

 neighborhood, of large experience, prophesies that 

 my budded plants will eventually die from decay 

 at the point of insertion of the bud stock. There 

 is, in fact, some bursting of bark and slight decay 

 at this point. The plants at the extreme ends of 

 the house (Nos. i and 5) would fill the house in 



one summer if all the others are removed, but be- 

 fore removing any I would like to hear the expe- 

 rience of others with budded roses under glass, as 

 to their permanency. My practice with these roses 

 has been to rerpove the glass from over them in 

 May and let them grow unchecked during the 

 summer. 



The sashes are replaced in October and the 

 plants pruned. At this Autumn pruning I try to 

 preserve a full supply of strong, well-ripened canes 

 of the summer's growth, and prune out the weak 

 growths and the old stunted stubs. These long 

 canes will, if well ripened, soon be strung -with 

 buds on short side shoots. These are the buds for 

 Christmas and midwinter. After this crop is about 

 over, I go over the plants again, and spur in the 

 shoots that have bloomed close to the cane. This 

 usually gives me an abundant bloom for Easter, 

 and on till the glass comes off again. Many 

 critics say I prune too much, but with me "the 

 proof of the pudding is the eating of it." I get as 

 large crops of buds as any one I know of, and am 

 perfectly satisfied with the pruning. Your corres- 

 pondent, on page 360 of December number, says 

 the plants on their own roots will decay, though 

 mine show no signs of it. Now which am I to 

 remove, the budded plants or those on their own 

 roots ? 



HEATING A SMALL PLANT HOUSE. 

 i;V R. W. DAWSON, LITTLE ROCK, ARK. 



1 see by the January number that Miss W., of 

 Quaker Hill, N. Y., makes inquiries about heating 

 a small plant room or greenhouse. I have a green- 

 house 11x24, that I have kept warm all winter so 

 far, with oil stoves, and I have no trouble in keeping 

 heat anywhere from 50° at night to 80^ in the 

 daytime. I use two oil stoves. Each has two 

 four-inch wicks, and so far I have used about one 

 gallon of oil for each stove every twenty-four 

 hours. I have the stoves on the ground, under 

 the bench, fastened by wire to the bottom of the 

 bench. I have common stove pipe, which runs 

 the full length of one side, and across the end,, 

 and one-third the way down the other side. Then 

 it runs up, and out at the top of the house. I 

 have a common elbow where the pipe coinmenced, 

 and under that I set one stove, and two-thirds the 

 length further down (or 16 feet from the first) I 

 have what the tinners call a T elbow, that is an 

 elbow in the shape of the letter T. So that the 

 '. pipe connects all the way. The piping is up high 

 enough, so that I can take stoves from under the 



