36 PICTORIAL PRACTICAL ROSE GROWING. 
their tops clear, but convenient for covering in hard weather, 
are perfectly safe. It might be argued that if they cannot be 
lanted early they may as well stay in the nursery, at some- 
ody else’s risk than yours, till spring. I used to look at it in 
that way myself until I had reached my hundred with Marie 
Baumann and Madame Lambard! 
Late October or early November planting is very good, 
because (1) there is warmth left in the soil, and the trees are 
quite likely to make root before winter; (2) there is generally 
time to do the work thoroughly. 
Whatever the period of planting, however good the quality 
of the trees, a little trimming is likely to be necessary. And 
that is why—man being naturally a cutthroat—the grower feels 
such a glow of delight when he finds himself with a bundle of 
Roses beside him and a sharp knife gripped tightly in his dexter 
paw. If there is a tap root going nearly straight down it had 
better be shortened, and any and every root that is torn, or 
broken, or jagged, or is in any way whatever an imperfect root, 
should be cut back. 
It is not a case for indiscriminate hacking, but for intelligent 
curtailment. Unless a root is very strong and straggly, there 
is no necessity for cutting more than the injured part away ; 
directly clean, healthy wood is come to the pruner should hold 
his hand. 
If I might venture to just mention my own modus 
operandi in this matter of preparing Roses for planting, I should 
do so as follows: First of all, I talk (apparently aimlessly) at 
the breakfast table about the wonderful quality of the new 
trees, and the astonishing crop of flowers which they are lhkely 
to produce. This secures me the ardent sympathy of the pre- 
siding genius of the coffee-pot, and the pick of all the old gioves 
in the house. I select something pretty tough for my left hand, 
but have my right hand only lghtly covered. 
Taking up a Rose tree with my left hand, and gripping it 
firmiy by the stem, I poise it, and run my eyes over root and 
branch as searchingly, as deliberately, as fondly as a connoisseur 
surveys his uplifted glass of wine. It is not a mere casual 
glance, remember. It is a soul-stirring, epoch-making survey. 
As the lover gazes on his inamorata when he discovers her in 
the conservatory with her last partner, so I gaze on my Rose— 
adoringly, jealously, appealingly, threateningly—love and 
menace and exquisite pain all commingled. 
This examination tells me all I want to know about my Rose. 
I have, so to say, got its balance. Seeing what it is, I also see 
if it is what I want it to be. A bit of dead root is seen here— 
it is snipped off ; a broken piece shows there—it goes likewise. 
No clean, healthy, unbroken root is ever touched, unless, per- 
chance, it is a roystering fellow, threatening to get away into 
the lower regions of the earth ; then it is trimmed hack, 
