THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 301 
on hand before they attain a saleable size. More care and skill are 
also necessary in propagating roses from cuttings than by means of 
budding or grafting, and altogether those who are interested, 
commercially, in roses, have good reasons for not desiring any 
radical change in their propagation. But the amateur, who is 
naturally enough desirous that his roses should produce the best 
possible effect, and that as they increase in age they should increase 
in size and beauty, should steadily encourage the cultivation of 
ruses on their own roots. Worked roses seldom remain in a 
healthy condition many years, unless the conditions are eminently 
favourable to them, and more often than not they die off within two 
or three years of their being planted. But to the life of a rose-bush 
on its own roots no limit can well be set, for year by year it sends 
up strong shoots from the base, as well as making a strong growth 
above, and if it is cut down to the ground-line by a severe f.ost, it 
will renew itself from below in the course of the summer, and make 
such rapid progress, that by the end of the season it will again have 
become a bush of respectable size. It is sometimes urged that 
plants on their own roots do not produce blooms of so good a 
quality as those on the brier or the Manetti. But a greater delusion 
could not possibly exist. As a matter of fact, owing to the greater 
vigour usually possessed, they can be depended upon to produce 
blooms large in size and of splendid quality. Of this fact I have 
long been cognizant, but I would in passing observe that, just before 
the last rose show at the Crystal Palace, I had an opportunity of 
seeing the rose garden at Valentine’s, Ilford, which has been formed 
almost exclusively of roses on their own roots, and a more splendid 
lot I have not seen, and I have reviewed some good ones in my time. 
The bushes have not long been planted, but when I saw them they 
were about three feet in height, and as much in diameter, and 
densely flowered. I should be afraid to say how many flowers each 
bush carried, but hundreds of the clusters consisted of as many as 
twelve flowers and buds in various stages of development, and from 
the majority of these clusters might have been cut blooms quite equal 
to any of the blooms exhibited a few days later at the Crystal 
Palace. The blooms were, indeed, so good, that Mr. Early might 
have cut a stand of thirty-six or forty-eight blooms that would have 
placed him at the head of the prize list, although he had not removed 
a single bud or resorted to any of the methods usually adopted by 
exhibitors, for obtaining a few flowers of extra fine quality. ; 
Sufficient has, it is hoped, been said to show that roses on their 
own rocts should in every case be selected in preference to those 
on briers or the Manetti, and it now remains to be observed, that 
whether on their own or on foster roots, dwarf bushes are decidedly 
the best, especially when required simply for the embellishment of 
the garden. In some few cases, standards, which must be on the 
brier, are desirable; but for borders or beds they are so inferior in 
effectiveness to the bushes, that they ought not to be planted, except- 
ing it be in the centre of a bed or in the back row of a border. In 
purchasing worked roses, it must be borne in mind that the brier is 
the best suited to heavy, and the Manetti to light soils, and that the 
October. 
