VII STOCKS 133 
well as setting a supply at home. An amateur com- 
mencing business had better buy a double supply of 
cuttings the first year, half rooted for budding the 
next year, and half unrooted for the year after. 
Manetti cuttings, which may be useful to an ex- 
hibitor for the production of early maiden blooms of 
the H.P.s, may be raised and treated in exactly the 
same way. They strike much easier than the briar 
cuttings, and there should be very few which fail to 
root. 
I have never gone the length of trying to raise 
briar seedlings, as they are cheap to purchase in 
quantity, and I have not much faith in the stock for 
highly cultivated Roses. The seeds should be rubbed 
out of the ripe heps, and sown an inch deep in drills 
about a foot apart. All will not germinate, and a 
great amount of difference will be found in the plants 
by the end of the year. Many will still be quite tiny 
things, and a person unacquainted with their power 
of growth would think the finest far too weak for 
budding the following August. But the second 
year’s growth is astonishing: puny plants, with 
shoots hardly bigger than  knitting-needles, will 
sometimes in that short time have become verit- 
able bushes with strong fleshy upright shoots, and a 
main root to bud on as thick as a man’s finger. 
Those that are evidently too small for budding the 
following summer should be reserved for another 
year, or transferred to pots for budding or grafting 
there. 
The seedling briar has naturally a tap-root; in 
fact, as with all seedlings, there is only a tap-root at 
first. When purchased, the length and straightness 
of the roots are remarkable: and it seems probable 
