280 ON PROPAGATING THE DOUBLE WHiTE MOSS ROSE. 



TO PROPAGATE THE RHODODENDRON FROM SEED. 



BY A NURSERYMAN. 



Febkuary is the season that the seed of this beautiful plant is ripe, 

 and it should be gathered on a dry day, and spread on paper, laid in a 

 warm place or before a fire until the capsules open, which will be in 

 the course of eight or ten hours, when the seed may be easily shaken 

 out. In March, choose a piece of ground in a sheltered situation and 

 shaded from the midday sun. Prepare a piece of ground by digging 

 and breaking it very fine, then lay six inches of fine sifted turf mould 

 all over. Sow the seed thick on the surface, and cover it with dried 

 moss finely chopped and rubbed small. Then give a hearty watering 

 with a fine rose, in order to wash the seeds into tiieir mould. The use 

 of the moss is to protect the young plants, and should not be removed. 

 The plants will be ready to plant in nurserj^ rows the third year after 

 sowino-, and should be planted in the same sort of mould as directed for 

 the seed. 



ON PROPAGATING THE DOUBLE WHITE MOSS ROSE. 



BY J. R. 



This beautiful Rose is somewhat difficult to cultivate successfully, and 

 not readily increased. I served my apprenticeship as a gardener, &c., 

 with Mr. Henderson, the celebrated and clever gardener at Wood Hall, 

 Lanarkshire, in Scotland, and under his management this Rose was 

 cultivated most admirably. 



The part of tlie garden occupied by the White Moss Rose, and some 

 other clioice plants, at Wood Hall, m as low and sheltered, the soil con- 

 sistino- almost wholly of rotted bark, or tan, formerly used in the hot- 

 houses and melon frames. This substance is not congenial to the 

 o-rowth of plants so long as it contains any of the tannin or matter 

 which renders bark useful to tanners ; but being decomposed, and 

 reduced to a black mould, is superior to every otiier for these plants. 

 In this they were planted, and having established themselves a year or 

 two, his method «as to layer them — not in the usual way, by bending 

 down tlie brandies, and inserting a part in the soil — but he bent down 

 every brancli, and covered them with about an inch and a lialf of the 

 mould. Had he left a single shoot uncovered, his opinion was that 

 the tendency of tlie sap being to flow upward, too much of it would 

 find a passage in that direction ; but when all the branches were 

 covered each received a like impulse ; and his tlieory was borne out 

 by the fact that every eye pushed forth a vigorous shoot which took 

 root below the surface ; so that more plants were produced from a 

 given number of stools in a single season than could be produced in 

 ten years by the old or common method. 



The produce of the Tree Peony, too, by similar treatment, was truly 

 astonishing. A single shoot, which was raised for the purpose of 

 proving the excellence of the method, liad twenty-seven rooted plants 

 attached to it ; nor have I the least doubt that many of my friends in 



