200 THE BOOK OF THE ROSE CHAP. 
care should be taken to avoid syringing the blooms, 
but the house must by no means be allowed to 
become dry; the paths and walls should be damped 
three times a day in sunny weather at 8 A.M., noon, 
and 5.30 P.m.; and there should be at least an hour 
or two every day, at the time the buds show colour, 
when air can be given. If there is also a cool house, 
those plants, especially the H.P.s, which are nearly 
opening their blooms, will show better and more 
lasting flowers if they can be removed to it, or at 
all events shaded from bright sun. A slight fall of 
temperature and a little less light are always bene- 
ficial for the actual blooming, but of course the 
decrease of heat should not be great. 
Thereis considerable danger in over-watering forced 
Roses in pots when the growth is young and the 
flower buds are forming, for ‘“‘ damping off” is even 
a worse misfortune than mildew. ‘Tapping the pots 
with a knob-stick or something similar, to judge by 
the sound whether it be wet or dry, is a well-known 
device, similar to that of the wheel-testers on rail- 
ways. A clear sharp sound indicates dryness and 
soundness, and a duller one damp or fracture. 
After blooming, summer-flowering Roses, if any 
such have been forced, may be removed at once to a 
cool pit or some other shelter and hardened off; the 
others may be shifted to a cool house, and will give 
another useful crop of flowers in April and May. If 
there be no other house, and warmth is still desired 
to be kept up in the forcing house, some means must 
be resorted to for gradually hardening the plants off 
till they can be finally removed out of doors. Then, 
instead of all trouble being over with the pot plants 
for the year, comes as important a time as any, for 
