PROPAGATION. 97 



will have started to callus, when they should be re- 

 moved to a frame or house with bottom-heat. Here 

 they will start to root, and may soon be potted off 

 sing-Iy into pots, which should be kept in bottom-heat 

 until the trees are well established, when they should 

 be transferred to a cold frame and hardened off, giving- 

 air gradually until they are quite strong. 



Cuttings are easily taken from Roses that have 

 been forced under glass, for they root very readily ; 

 only instead of placing them in a cold frame, they 

 must be grown in a frame or house with bottom-heat 

 from the start and kept there for about eight weeks. 

 This means that cuttings will be taken from March to 

 May, and these will be ready to plant out by the end 

 of the season or grown in pots in the open, to be 

 brought into the house at the end of the year. 



Layers. — June, July and August are the best 

 months in which to layer Roses, and early-layered 

 branches will provide trees by the following November 

 which, if cut back in the spring, should bloom the 

 first summer or autumn they are planted out. Much 

 depends upon the variety and the nature of the soil in 

 which it is planted. Layering is quite a simple matter^ 

 but it is not easy to layer every variety; indeed, some 

 trees are impossible. In any case, fork over the ground 

 vvhere the layers are to be made, and work in sand, 

 leaf mould and a little old manure that has been more 

 or less dried and worked through a coarse sieve. Break 

 up the soil quite fine round the tree. Select the shoots to 

 be bent down and strip off all the lower leaves, allow- 

 ing only those at the end of the shoot to remain for 

 about six inches to a foot from the top. Then gently 

 bend down your branch in a trial to see where best to 

 cut a tongue in the wood and at which point to peg it 

 down. Take your knife and cut an upward slice for 

 a distance of about an inch and a half, and half-way 

 through the wood, then take up your trowel, and at 

 the spot marked, where you first bent down your shoot, 

 insert your trowel and work it backwards and for- 

 wards to make a cleft in the soil. Into the cleft made 



