324 THE BOOK OF THE ROSE CHAP. 
should preserve them from frost till the middle of 
February; and then, instead of removing the pro- 
tection, mend it and restore it by covering any 
cracks with more earth till April, for the very 
opposite reason, to keep them from the heat and 
influence of the early spring sun... I do this, not 
only to delay the flowering that the blooms may be 
available for exhibition, but also because the very 
first buds to break are those of the flower-bearing 
shoots which will be injured by cold nights, and per- 
haps actually destroyed by late frosts. If the latter 
calamity should occur, the plants may be flowerless 
‘throughout the season, for autumnal blooms will 
only come, as a rule, from the shoots which have 
already flowered. When the protection is removed, 
at such a date in April as may suit the locality and 
the danger of frost, the plants may be slightly raised 
again, the heads being tied to bamboos and the long 
shoots cut back only where they have died, being 
kept in a fairly horizontal position. 
Maréchal Niel is easily forced and much grown 
for the market, the best method of pruning and 
training under glass to get a fine crop of these 
splendid blooms in early spring having been de- 
scribed on p. 108. Pruned under this system, 
the power of growth of a well-fed Rose of this 
variety under glass is astonishing. A gentleman— 
Mr. Bagshawe Dixon—purchased a house in this 
parish and with it a small greenhouse which had a 
somewhat neglected short standard of Maréchal 
Niel in one corner. He very much enlarged the 
glasshouse, and by my advice cut the Rose com- 
pletely back, and then fed it highly, when it grew 
very. strongly. In April, 1903, he cut it back again 
