FORCING ROSES. 99 



had previously spoken, had forced roses for fifteen or twenty 

 3'ears, and when turned out of the pots the roots are a mass of 

 fibres. He knew that they could be forced when turned out. He 

 knew a man who forced from five hundred to a thousand plants 

 yearly. 



Mr. Hovey read the notes of his remarks at the meeting on the 

 19th of February, in which he stated that the plants should be 

 grown in pots to ensure the best success, and said that if they had 

 been planted in the ground and were to be taken up, it should be 

 done in September. Mr. Paul, the English rose grower, had shown 

 a plant with two hundred blooms, and he kept them for fifteen 

 years in pots. Undoubtedly they can be grown successfully by 

 potting in autumn. Mr. Nelson's plants were finer than any that 

 have been shown here, and he plants out. Mr. Hovey thought 

 that those who are not proficient would do better to plunge and 

 shift their plants, and bring on a perhaps premature ripeness of 

 the wood. 



The Chairman asked, Why not ripen the wood earlier, by with- 

 holding water, so as to start them earlier? He had supposed that 

 frost was a more desirable element than the gentlemen who had 

 spoken appeared to think. 



Mr. Atkinson said that ripeness of wood is an indispensable 

 condition. Drought and frost have the same effect. In California 

 the only way they can ripen their wood is by withholding water. 

 Cold and heat have the same eflect on vegetation. A rose which 

 has produced such flowers as are exhibited to-day, has made three- 

 fourths of its growth. He had roses with shoots fourteen or fifteen 

 inches long, and if these were not taken care of after flowering, 

 there would be but a small show of bloom another season. He 

 would say to any amateur beginning to force roses, that if he 

 did not get an abundance of flowers the first year he should not 

 be discouraged. 



E. W. Buswell asked whether Deutzia gracilis could be forced 

 without being subjected to a season of frost. 



Mr. Wilder said he had forced them when they had been only 

 subjected to a slight frost, but they would have done better if they 

 had been frozen thoroughly so as to put the plants entirely at rest. 



Mr. Hovey thought the subject was somewhat in doubt. It is 

 very difficult to establish what is successful cultivation. He had 

 a hundred deutzias which had not been out of the pots for five 



