200 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



shoot of the stock begins to grow, and if it has a weelc or two 

 to thrive, it injures the head beyond all calculation and 

 belief ; and whenever you have to remove a shoot from the 

 stock, take it off so close as to leave no buds to shoot again. 

 Wlien a rose-tree has got over its second year's growth, and 

 got into a pretty good form, it only wants the usual annual 

 growth for a short time to make it as large as we desire. But 

 this can be achieved the third year well by only leaving the 

 under branches rather longer than we might if it had arrived 

 at the size we wish it to attain ; because, that once reached, 

 the pruning of a rose becomes a straightforward affair. We 

 have simply to cut out all weak shoots clean to their shooting- 

 place ; then cut close every snag that may have died back 

 past the last eye ; to remove all branches that grow under the 

 head, and tend to thicken it, or make it confused ; and to cut 

 clean out, instead of shorten, every branch that is not wanted ; 

 for, inasmuch as many new shoots will start every year from 

 the old wood, the head would soon be choked up, if they 

 were not all cleared out ; and it is of the greatest importance 

 that the cut should be clean and close. Nothing has tended 

 to kill a great many roses, and damage more, so much as 

 leaving snags and spurs, which, constantly die back ; and the 

 mischief goes sometimes further : so that, at each yearly 

 pruning, every roughness, spur, snag, and dead branch should 

 be taken as clean away as if it had never been there. The 

 form we should aim at in the head of a standard, should be a 

 globe, with the lower third cut off ; and a figure of this kind 

 would shame three-fourths of the standard roses, which are 

 pruned, year after year, to the form of small mops, or birch 

 brooms, stuck up all over a ground, and more or less unsightly 

 rri every respect, according as there are a greater number or 

 fewer of them. 



Eose-bushes are, for tbe most part, roses on their own roots, 

 and not worked, or they are roses worked so near the ground 

 as to be the same in effect. The pruning of these consists in 

 keeping them down ; for bushes would be more unruly than 

 standards, if neglected. The wood below soon gets bare and 

 unsightly, chiefly because the branches are, if let alone, soon 

 too thick, and rob one another of air and light. We should 

 begin a rose-bush by cutting away everjiihiag but two or 

 three eyes ; or if there be already two or three healthy shoots 

 come from near the ground, cut away all but them, and shorten 



