354 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



field in the spring to grow during the summer for shipment to customers in 

 the fall, who want them to pot for the spring retail trade. Of course the 

 shading must be removed from the glass as the plants get established and the 

 weather gets colder, and regular attention must be given during the winter 

 to watering and airing the frames. As the weather gets cold, the pots should 

 be packed all over with cotton seed hulls, to prevent the freezing of the pots 

 and soil, but they should be kept as cool as possible for frost to be excluded, 

 as it is not desirable that they should get into active growth during the winter. 

 One sash three by six feet will winter three hundred plants, which will be 

 worth, dug from the field the following fall, from forty to one hundred dollars 

 per thousand at wholesale, according to the rarity of the varieties. Fifteen 

 thousand plants can be set on an acre, and it will be seen that this is another 

 profitable use for the sashes and frames. Of course anyone going into the 

 propagation of roses for the trade will have his connections North who will 

 handle his stock, and when the whole work can be done on contract for the 

 large houses who distribute the stock, it can be seen that an important in- 

 dustry can easily grow up in this way. But, as we have said, when one goes 

 into business on a large scale he should be provided with an outfit of propagat- 

 ing houses, which, during the winter, can be used for other purposes, as we 

 will suggest. 



The only artificial fertilizer the rose grower needs to use in his potting 

 compost is raw bone dust, and in the field the plants will take as much manure 

 as a corn field, and will need as much more cultivation if the best plants are 

 desired. 



For the propagation of the hardy hybrid roses the Southern grower needs 

 no glass. The cuttings should not be made till the wood is perfectly ripe and 

 the leaves have fallen or will rub off easily. We then make, in November, 

 cuttings of the summer's growth of about four or five eyes or buds, cutting 

 the lower end off right under a bud and the upper end half an inch above one. 

 Select a piece of well sheltered, fertile loam soil, and insert the cuttings up 

 to the upper bud, six inches apart in rows two and a half feet apart, and 

 mulch the rows with pine straw or cotton seed hulls to prevent the soil from 

 freezing. If the wood is well ripened most of the varieties will root and be 

 ready to grow in the spring, though some varieties root more certainly than 

 others. The time for setting the cuttings is in November, but we have fre- 

 quently set them later ; and on one occasion cuttings of the new rose, Margaret 

 Dixon, set in February, made plants over six feet high the same summer. 

 These roses are, of course, allowed to grow during the summer where the cut- 

 tings are set, and are salable in the fall just as the tea roses are. Some dealers 

 in the North have gotten prejudiced against the cutttings rooted in the open 



