CHAPTER VI 
PRUNING 
THE severe pruning to which many of the best 
and finest Roses are annually subjected may well 
cause some dismay to a novice, who might perhaps 
not only ask why we should destroy such a large 
part of the plants we so cherished the year before, 
but also go on to the wider question ‘‘ Why is 
pruning necessary for any purpose? Why should 
not our Rose-trees grow as fine and large as they 
will?” 
The answer is to be found in the manner of the 
natural growth of the Rose. By watching an un- 
pruned Rose-tree, either wild or cultivated, it will 
be found that the first strong shoot flowers well the 
second season but gets weaker at the extremity in a 
year or two, and another strong shoot starts consider- 
ably lower down or even from the very base of the 
plant, and this soon absorbs the majority of the sap 
and will eventually starve the original shoot, and be 
itself thus starved in succession by another. A rose 
in a natural state has thus every year some branches 
which are becoming weakened by the fresh young 
shoots growing out below them. This is one of the 
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