VIII PROPAGATION 155 
open air. French grafting wax which can be used 
cold is preferable to home-made material, but winter 
erafting can hardly be considered worth the trouble 
for amateurs, unless it be carried out on a large 
scale, and close frames with bottom heat in properly 
constructed houses can be provided. 
Roses on their own Roots.—lt is constantly being 
put forward as a new discovery that Roses, especially 
some varieties, may themselves be struck as cuttings, 
and will in time form fair plants and give decent 
blooms. ‘‘ Why then,” it is said, ‘‘take all this 
trouble about stocks and budding? You plant your 
cuttings in the autumn, in any quantity, as it is all 
wood that you will cut away at the spring pruning, 
and you thus get real genuine Rose bushes—Roses 
on their own roots, which cannot be killed by frost 
unless root and all perish together, and whose 
suckers are welcome as they are only increase to 
the Roses.” 
The simple answer to this is, that not only does 
it take longer thus to form plants which will give 
fair flowers, but that it is a fact that Roses on their 
own roots do not grow so well or flower so well as 
those which are budded on stronger rooting stocks. 
Nevertheless some varieties, especially of the free 
and hardy garden sorts, will answer in this way, 
and the best modes of striking the cuttings shall 
therefore be described. 
The usual time for taking them is November. 
They should be prepared of as ripe wood as can 
be found of the current year’s growth, about ten 
inches in length. The thorns had better be trimmed 
off, but none of the buds as all these will help if they 
grow. If a small portion of “heel’’ or older wood 
