234 General Notices. 



bramble is another brother of the rose family, and this, as well as the 

 mountain-ash, rambles at large by ravine and crag, growing freely in any 

 reasonable situation, and in spots where neither grazing nor tillage can be 

 carried on. Surely, then, we may reasonably hope to establish a climbing 

 rose in a locality where two brothers of the same family already flourish. 



The rose and its prop must be planted young in well-prepared earth ; for, 

 be it remembered, they will just grow and flower in proportion as they are 

 fed, and therefore such a spread of foliage as is here expected requires 

 something like a vine-border to give the necessary supplies of food, &c. 



I do not write to please those parties who know so little of rose-culture 

 as to imagine that roses will not climb very high trees and flower freely. 

 The Rosa arvensis climbs to the top of an arbor vitae in the grounds here 

 20 or 30 feet, and its long and gracefully bending shoots may be seen 

 dangling from the branches of high trees in the woods here and elsewhere. 

 Loudon mentions (Arb. Brit., p. 790) Eastwell Park, Pains Hill, Clare- 

 mont, Pepperharrow, Spring Grove, and Fonlhill, where similar specimens 

 may be seen of Rosa arvensis, and particularly the Ayrshire and the ever- 

 green roses, producing a fine effect, flowering, and even forming festoons 

 among high trees. I need scarcely add, that, in length and strength of vine, 

 many of the cultivated roses equal and even surpass the wild rose. I have 

 seen climbing roses against a wall here and at other places make shoots 20 

 feet long in a couple of seasons, and flower profusely ; therefore, if the 

 Rosa arvensis and its varieties climb trees of their own accord, surely art 

 might train the twigs of other climbing roses in a track where nature unas- 

 sisted prompts them to run. There is no plant of easier culture than the 

 climbing rose ; for all roses grow freely from cuttings, and thrive well in the 

 common corn-land of the country, and even in places and soils where corn 

 would scarcely be produced. They never fail running and flowering every 

 year ; and this running propensity, or, in other words, this truly desirable 

 quick habit of growth, has hitherto caused this section of the rose family to 

 be excluded from collections, or, if not excluded, to be unmercifully cut in, in 

 order to keep them in bounds, which cutting, owing to the peculiar habits of 

 this section of roses, amounts to nothing less than cutting ofl' their heads ; for, 

 if they are cut at all, the head or flowering part, being at the tip, is sure to 

 be sacrificed, whether the cutting be only an inch or a pole in length. The 

 climbing roses should either have a building to climb on, as a ruin, a bower, 

 a wall, a trellis, &c., or, failing these, they may readily and cheaply be ac- 

 commodated with a tree to climb for the small outlay of one penny. This 

 arrangement is not confined to the culture of climbing roses only, but should 

 extend to the culture of climbers of all kinds ; for, at the present time, 

 climbers cannot be grown in gardens, from sheer want of any thing to climb 

 upon. The grape-vine family, nearly all hardy, but seldom grown, pro- 

 duces the most beautiful foliage imaginable as a climber ; but, alas ! for 

 lack of the prop, we lose the service of the vine. In an economical point of 

 view, the vine is worthy of a place with a tall yew hedge to back it, and, 

 thus situated, something more than leaves would repay the planter. Any 

 one who has eaten grapes cooked, even when not fully ripe, will allow that 



