WHAT STOCK FOR BUDDED ROSES? 145 



more stalwart. Watch must be kept continually for suckers starting 

 from the root and shoots too low on the standard stem; these are to 

 be removed as soon as seen. New shoots in the head, or upper part 

 of the standard may be allowed to grow if such are needed to give it 

 a denser or fuller tree-form, but after that additional breaks of buds 

 should be rubbed off, except as needed for new wood to replace older 

 growth in the regular renewal system of rose-pruning which has 

 already been insisted upon. 



Own-root standards 'are naturally best of the strong growing 

 varieties. Weaker growers which seem not disposed to make long 

 shoots from the root may be given standard form by taking the best 

 shoot to be found and cutting that back to make good bud. Then train 

 the growth from that bud to a stake, clearing away all others which 

 may start. This shoot may be topped, if it reaches the height desired 

 for the standard stem, or, if it falls short of that, it too must be cut 

 back to a bud and trained to the stake. Such development of a stand- 

 ard by successive stem-growths is apt to give a spindly, more or less 

 crooked, stem and therefore it is better to make standards of such 

 varieties by budding into a stronger stem of a good stock and thus 

 making what is called a budded standard rose. 



What Stock for a Budded Standard? We do not speak for the 

 professionals; many considerations are involved in their work which 

 do not impress the amateur. Our experience has justified us in taking 

 cuttings from any rose which makes straight, stalwart canes -and is 

 therefore a strong grower. Mr. F. -C. Havens, a most successful 

 rosarian of Oakland, decided upon the Prairie Queen as the best stock, 

 after long experimentation with other roots. Certainly we have never 

 seen better hybrid perpetuals and hybrid teas than he has grown upon 

 Prairie stock. But we doubt if one need be restricted to particular 

 stock. A cutting of any strong-growing variety will advance into such 

 a tree with such training as has been described. As already claimed, 

 it does not require a briar or other foreign root to accomplish it. Rich 

 .soil and sufficient water will make a rose tree in California valleys or 

 foothills without recourse to hardier stock than most free-growing 

 tea-roses possess in their own roots. Of course, to secure full-sized 

 blooms, systematic pruning and thinning of shoots and buds are 

 necessary, and yet rose trees left almost entirely to their own ways, 

 produce wonderfully large as well as copious bloom. They attain, too, 

 a self-support which makes a stake as useless as it would be to an 

 orchard fruit tree. The best demonstration we have in our garden at 

 this moment is an own-root standard, Dr. Grill. For floriferousness 

 during a long blooming season it surely is a sight to behold. 



The Operation of Pruning. So many hints of the practice of prun- 

 ing the rose have been given in Chapters XI and XII, and in various 



