42 PICTORIAL PRACTICAL ROSE GROWING. 
Chapter 9.—Bow to Prune. 
THE psychologist, who loves to bring his mental dissecting knife into 
play on human characteristics and emotions, would find a little 
material for his operations if he were to turn his attention to 
the study of Rose growers. Set him up with the elementary 
fact that men systematically over-prune, and women as con- 
sistently under-prune, and he would straightway reel off a 
dissertation on the primitive instincts of the sexes, which, 
highly learned though it might be, would teach us only what 
we know already namely that man is in his elements a 
savage, whereas woman is sweet, tender, and angelic. 
On the face of things there is no apparent reason why the 
horticulturist should add another to his already long list of 
subjects of study; yet here we see that psychology has its 
value. In his ignorance of human instincts, the horticulturist, 
who is usually a mere child in worldly wisdom, has often 
puzzled his brains to account for the departure from his 
precise instructions which he has observed. The man whom 
he set out to teach has overdone it; the woman has under- 
done it. 
Now, having sucked the psychological orange dry, and 
satisfied ourselves that the reason why Rose growers so often 
go astray with their pruning is purely a matter of sexual im- 
pulses, it may be well to deal with the situation on such 
hard and fast lines of practical philosophy as are represented 
by the letters of the alphabet, the figures of the numerical 
system, and a foot rule. . 
I do not believe that Roses will ever be pruned properly 
on general principles. Principles are beautiful things, but they 
(References to Fig. 19, page 43.) 
A, two years old tree: a, point of first pruning to five buds, resulting in 
five growths and a sixth from an underground bud; 4, June flowering 
shoots ; ¢, autumn flowering shoots; d, spring growths; e, points of 
spring pruning ; f, leading growth to be shortened at discretion. 
B, three years old tree: g, very weak shoots shortened to one bud; h, weak 
shoots to two buds; 2, fairly strong shoots to three buds; 7, very strong 
shoots to four buds. 
For further particulars see the chapter on Pruning. 
