PROPAGATION OF THE RO&K. 117 



the same temperature as that in wliich the parent plant 

 has grown. These pots or benches would be better cov- 

 ered with glass, but it is not essential. After the cuttings 

 have rooted, they can De potted into small pots, and 

 placed in a house of moderate temperature. About the 

 middle of May they can be taken out of these pots and 

 planted in the open ground. 



BY LAYERS. 



This mode is more particularly applicable to those roses 

 that bloom only once in the year, and which do not strike 

 freely from cuttings, although it can be equally well ap- 

 plied to all the smooth-wooded kinds. It can be perform- 

 ed at midsummer and for several weeks afterward, and 

 should be employed only in those cases where young 

 shoots have been formed at least a foot long and are well 

 matured. The soil should be well dug around the plant, 

 forming a little raised bed of some three feet in diameter, 

 with the soil well pulverized and mixed with some manure 

 thoroughly decomposed, and, if heavy, a little sand. A 

 hole should then be made in this bed about four inches 

 deep, and the young matured shoot bent down into it, 

 keeping the top of the shoot some three or four inches 

 above the surface of the ground ; the angle thus being 

 found, which should always be made at a bud and about 

 five or six inches from the top of the shoot, the operator 

 should cut otf all the leaves below the ground. A sharp 

 knife should then be placed just below a bud, about three 

 inches below the surface of the ground, and a slanting cut 

 made upward and lengthwise, about half through the 

 branch, forming a sort of tongue from one to two inches 

 long, on the back part of the shoot right opposite the bud ; 

 a chip or some of the soil can be placed in the slit, to pre- 

 vent it from closing, and the shoot can then be carefully 

 laid in the hole, and pegged down at a point some two 



