292 OBSERVATIONS ON THE CULTIVATION OF ROSliS IN POTS. 



should be removed to a cold pit, syringing and shading, if sunny 

 weather, for a week or ten days. Here they soon form fresh fibrous 

 roots, and scarcely feel their removal. It will be well if the tender 

 varieties can be allowed to remain in the pit during winter, at which 

 season they require scarcely any w r ater ; otherwise they should be 

 removed to the north side of a wall or fence, and a thatch of fern, or 

 beech boughs with the leaves on, formed; or any other mode of pro- 

 tection that can be more readily devised, to secure the plants from 

 rain and frost. Indeed, it is clearly evident that the rains of autumn 

 as seriously injure the delicate-rooted Roses as the frost in winter ; 

 for, during the mild winters of 1842-43, many of them died, which 

 was doubtless owing to their receiving too much moisture in autumn, 

 whereby the roots perished. Thus, then, the tender varieties may be 

 protected from injury during winter, and the hardy ones may be 

 removed from the pits about a month after being potted, and plunged 

 at once in the open ground where intended to be grown and flowered. 

 " Pruning. — About the middle of November pruning may be 

 performed, in order to effect an early bloom. The plants having 

 been thinned out previously, all that is now required is the shortening 

 in of the remaining shoots. It is a difficult matter to lay clown any 

 precise rules with regard to pruning, upon the judicious adaptation 

 of which depends not only the well forming of the plant, but, in a 

 great measure, the perfection of bloom also. In order to prune 

 Roses with certainty of success, we ought to know the character of 

 each plant w r e are about to operate on, for Roses of the same class 

 ofttimes require very different pruning. The best criterion we can 

 offer is, perhaps, habit of growth. Among the Hybrid Chinese, the 

 two favourite old Roses, Brennus and Fulgens, both vigorous growers, 

 frequently occasion great disappointment by not blooming. The 

 failure will probably be found to arise from the method of pruning. 

 These Roses, and others of like habit, should be well thinned out, 

 but the shoots that are left for flowering shortened but little. Others 

 of the same class (Hybrid Chinese), that are weak growers, may be 

 shortened in close ; such are General Allard and Lady Stuait, two 

 beautiful and well-known Roses. There are also varieties of inter- 

 mediate growth, which may be pruned in proportion. The classes 

 Gallica, Provence, and Moss, may be pruned closer than the Hybrid 

 Chinese. The autumnal Roses there is but little fear of pruning out 



