112 THE BOOK OF THE ROSE CHAP. 
bottom of the box to prevent shifting. It is no use 
sending away full-blown Roses; they should in all 
cases be undeveloped and scarcely past the bud 
stage; and another noteworthy and important pre- 
paration for a successful journey consists in placing 
the flowers in water for two or three hours before 
packing. 
Many of the H.P. Roses grown out of doors will 
require a considerable thinning of the flower buds, 
not only for exhibition, but in order to get 
presentable blooms. The majority of the crimson 
H.P.s, such as Madame Victor Verdier, form great 
clusters of buds at the end of the strong shoots, and 
the result will be most unsatisfactory if they are 
all allowed to remain. The centre bud will open 
first or try to do so, but it will be so hampered by 
want of room and so robbed of its nutriment by its 
many companions as to fall very far short of what 
it might have been. It is generally not cut, as its 
stem is too short unless the other buds are cut un- 
opened, so it withers and spoils the appearance of 
the “truss”? just when two or three of the other 
poor things come out even smaller than the first 
one; and so the whole life of the shoot is a failure 
—it has not produced one Rose worthy of the 
name, and yet it and the plant have been exhausted 
by flower formation more than if the buds had been 
properly thinned to one or two and a glorious bloom 
had been obtained and cut. 
Those who grow Roses merely to enjoy their 
beauty without any thought of exhibiting them will 
find that this thinning of the buds makes an im- 
mense difference to the quality and beauty of their 
blooms, and will give them, in the case of many 
