46 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
and the result will be a solid mass of bloom without a single stake 
being visible. For those grown in pots good turfy loam two parts, 
and manure one part, forms a most suitable compost. 
When in pots they require a rather rich compost, but in beds 
they grow with great vigour, and produce a magnificent display of 
bloom, in the poorest of soil; so well do they thrive in poor soils, 
that to apply manure would be little better than wasting it. Their 
thriving in starving soils is, in my opinion, a strong point in their 
favour, so far as the great body of amateur cultivators are concerned, 
for any saving that can be effected in the manure bill is certainly a 
real gain. 
SEEDLING BRIERS FOR ROSE STOCKS. 
BY AN AMATEUR ROSARIAN, 
weemeeersy| THIN the last three or four years, much has been 
written in reference to the value of the cultivated brier 
u as a stock for roses, and one of the strongest advocates 
¥%| of this stock has afforded ocular demonstration of its 
™ capabilities by presenting at the public exhibitions 
stands of roses that have held their own against all comers. The 
use of this stock was for a long time regarded as a quite new idea; 
but there is nothing new about it, for it has been employed in France 
from time immemorial ; and we have in England a grower who avers 
that he has grown roses on it for something like sixty years. The 
chief advantage claimed for the stock over the briers obtained from 
the hedgerows, is the greater abundance of fibrous roots, which 
enables the trees to be transplanted without any of the risks with 
which the removal of those on the ordinary stocks are attended. It 
is also claimed for the stock, that as the fibrils are more abundant, 
the support afforded the tree is greater, and that there is practically 
no risk of the trees perishing. Roses certainly make magnificent 
growth, and there can be no question as to its being especially 
suitable for dwarfs. 
There has been some little discussion in rose circles in reference 
to the value of this stock, and in consequence inquiries are being 
made on all sides as to the best means of raising a supply for bud- 
ding. The first step is to gather the “hips ”’ from the hedge-briers 
in the course of the autumn and the winter, and to put them in 
large flower-pots or boxes, with layers of sand between. Early in 
March they must be removed from the sand, and crushed in some 
way to separate the seeds from the pulpy matter with which they 
are enclosed. When this has been done, sow in drills about a foot 
apart. Briers, it is proper to remark, do not, when raised from 
seed, send up tall, straight stems like those that spring from an old 
stool in the hedgerow, for these suckers are not produced until they 
have acquired age and strength. They, on the contrary, branch out 
in all directions, and form dwarf bushes, and a special course of 
management is required to make stocks of them, If they are re- 
quired simply for dwarf roses, they must, at the end of the first 
