Vill PROPAGATION 157 
Roses and some other sorts, when grown on their 
own roots, form suckers at some little way from the 
plant, and these when rooted may be cut off and 
transplanted to form plants elsewhere. A cut on 
the underside of the sucker beneath the ground will 
encourage the formation of roots. 
Dwarf plants of any free-growing variety may be 
“layered.” To perform this operation the shoot 
must be bent down so that it will touch the ground 
some little way from the tip. A small hole should 
be prepared here and filled with rooting material, 
such as leaf-mould, sand, and cocoa-fibre dust: the 
shoot should be cut halfway through and then 
longitudinally so as to form a tongue, and then 
pegged into and planted in this hole, when in due 
time roots will be produced and a new plant 
formed. 
It is possible also to raise Roses from mere buds 
or eyes as vines, but letting the leaf remain. There 
are other methods of inducing the wood and buds of 
Rose shoots to put forth roots, but for the propaga- 
tion of established sorts there is nothing to equal 
budding with winter grafting for the rapid multipli- 
cation of rare varieties. 
Roses from Seed.—A chapter on propagation 
would be very incomplete without at least some 
reference to the raising of Roses from seed, the 
principal means by which new varieties are gained, 
and to the hybridising or crossing of special sorts 
which has been so successful of late years with some 
raisers. Unfortunately I can give no minute 
practical details, not having attempted it myself, 
and successful hybridisers being naturally unwilling 
