64 



THE ROSE GARDEN. 



The aim in thinning should be to leave those shoots which are firmest and 

 healthiest, provided they are placed at nearly equal distances. Care should be 

 taken to cut the shoots close to their base : the wounds then heal over in Spring 

 and Summer, and the trees are grown clean and perfect. If the cut is not made 

 quite close, an eye at the base may burst forth and grow with extraordinary 

 vigour at a point where not wanted, and rob the other branches of their food, and 

 produce an uneven plant. Or should it not be so, the wood will die back, some- 

 times introducing decay into the heart of the tree. Sear snags and stumps, which are 

 sometimes met with in old specimens, are due to the slovenly practice of leaving 

 an inch or so on the bottom of shoots which should have been cut clean out. 



When shortening in, the lowest shoots should, where practicable, be left the 

 longest ; and the others may be shortened in closer and closer as we rise towards 

 the summit of the tree. The centre branch will, from its position, command a 

 free supply of sap, and it is likely that it will maintain the ascendancy. Now 

 the shoots shortened closest will, cceteris paribus, produce the strongest growth, 

 with the greatest tendency to rise perpendicularly, and thus the head is formed as 

 desired. In shortening the branches, we should insert the knife at b, on the oppo- 

 site side of the shoot to that on which the bud next below is placed ; and we should 

 cut in a direction slanting upward, about the eighth of an inch above the bud. 



But let us turn to the next stage of the above plant, No. 9. We left it pruned 



No. 9. 



No. 10. 



Long Pruning, Stage 2. 



Long-Pruning complete. 



