120 THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



prune our Rose bushes instead of killing them. Even if " worked " 

 low on the "collar" of the stock, grafted Roses have a chance of 

 rooting and keeping out of the way of frost, which they never have 

 when grafted high in the air. Then there is the fact of certain Roses 

 disliking stocks, or some stocks, as all buyers of Roses may see 

 certain varieties always " growing backwards," and soon dying. This 

 happens even where the first year's growth and flower are all we 

 could desire. Planter should see whether his Roses improve or not 

 after the first year, and it is certain that many varieties do go back 

 when " worked." 



Another element of uncertainty is the kind of stock used, Even 

 if the propagator knows the right stock for the sort he may not for 

 some reason use it, as many have found to their cost who have bought 

 Tea Roses grafted on the Manetti, a stock that in any case has no 

 merit beyond giving a few large blooms for a show the first year ; 

 and in many cases it paralyses all growth in the kind grafted 

 on it. 



The first care should be to get plants on own roots about as 

 strong as those worked, and it is not difficult to do this with a 

 little patience, as some gardeners and even cottagers strike Roses 

 from cuttings very successfully. But no trial would be of any use 

 which did not go over the first year or two, because of the dread 

 phase of the practice alluded to, that the things are grown to 

 sell, and although they look well when they come to us, after a year 

 or two perish. 



If we go into the Rose garden of the Luxembourg at Paris or any 

 of the regular roseries in England, we may find half the Roses in a 

 sickly, flowerless state. So sickly are the bushes, or what remains of 

 them, that it is common to see a rosery without any Roses worth 

 picking after the first flush of bloom is past Think of the number 

 of beautiful things which this has to do with to their harm : the 

 flowers fairest of all in form, colour, and odour, from the more 

 beautiful tea-scented Roses raised in our own days to the oldest 

 Roses. 



Often I have reason to wish that Signer Manetti of Naples 

 had never been born to give his name to the wretched Rose stock 

 that bears it, as among my blighted hopes is a plant of Marechal Niel 

 Rose, the plants on which have remained as they were at first for 

 the last five years ; but this year beside one of them is in bloom 

 the poor Manetti Rose, on which the Marechal was grafted, and 

 as the Tea Rose will not grow, the Manetti begins to take its 

 place. In some soils and conditions, the Manetti may give some 

 apparent advantages for the first year in making the plant grow 

 rapidly, and perhaps giving one or two flowers to be cut off for a 



