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48 PICTORIAL PRACTICAL ROSE GROWING. 
If, however, it is dangerous to prune hard in February or 
early March, it is safe to prune a little. We can remove a 
few inches of the tips of the branches, if we are getting 
alarmed at the extension of the shoots, without doing any 
harm. But early April is soon enough for cutting to e—that 
is, for doing the real pruning. 
So far as figure A is concerned, it remains to make a brief 
allusion to 7, which will be found on the left hand side, below 
* a. Nothing very disastrous would take place if the grower 
ignored it altogether, but a rosarian with an eye to a perfectly 
formed and dwarf bush would cut out the strong shoot at f, 
and so leave the centre quite open. , 
It is necessary to give a few moments’ attention to B, which 
may be taken as the result of pruning such a bush as A when 
another year has passed. A safe rule to follow in the third 
and succeeding years is to prune very weak shoots, mere 
twigs as thick as whipcord, to one bud; shoots % inch thick 
to two buds; shoots + inch thick to three buds; all shoots 
upwards of } inch thick to four buds. In every case begin 
to count at the base of the shoot. Each little reddish protuber- 
ance is a bud. 
The course of pruning here outlined is perhaps as near the 
happy medium as we can get. Ina sense it is hard pruning. 
It concedes more to the show pruner than to the non-pruner. 
It cannot, perhaps, be applied with equally satisfactory results 
to every Rose in the garden; but there is this to be said 
in its favour—it is more likely, if generally applied, to give 
good all round results than any other system, whether of harder 
or lighter pruning, that might be chosen for general adoption. 
The comparative merits of hard and light pruning (with non- 
pruning we will have nothing whatever to do) are likely to 
provoke discussion until the end of time. As long as Rose 
shows are held people who are fond of Roses will go to them, 
and, seeing very large blooms there, will want to produce 
flowers just like them in the garden at home. It is not an 
(References to Fig. 21, page 49.) 
A, upper part of a standard in the first growth from the bud; a, stem, Brier 
or Dog Rose; 4, point of cutting off the shoot in which the bud was 
inserted the previous summer about 1 inch beyond the bud during 
March ; ¢, a vigorous shoot from the bud; d, point of pinching out the 
tip of the shoot as soon as it has made four leaves, not counting the 
small basal one 
B: f, shoots which pushed as a result of pinching the shoot A ¢ to four leaves ; 
, growths issuing after a second stopping. 
C, one year old head after the spring pruning : /, the wood first made; 7, the 
wood which formed as a result of stopping the shoot from the bud at the 
fourth leaf. ‘These four shoots, shortened to two buds each, are certain 
to give eight flowering growths the following summer. 
