18U2 



(U.KANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



843 



ROSES. 



I>1{. MIM.I.I! rKI.1.8 WHAT UK KNOWS AMolI' 

 TIIKM; TItKIU PHOPAOATION, KTC. 



In H foot-iiolt> on \)SXko 774 I am " rpspcctfully 

 called upon to iinswci" some questions about 

 roses. Mr. Editor, do yon roali/.c wiiat a dan- 

 g(M"ous tliinjr it would lio to turn me loose on 

 the pages of (ii.KANiM.s with sneh a topic as 

 "RoS'S"? Why! it"s part of my creed, that 

 God inad(> the beautiful tilings of the world for 

 us to enjAy: and [ b<'li(ve that, if tlie l)oys and 

 girls of our homes were more geneially encour- 

 aged to cultivate a taste for tlow('rs, there 

 would be less danger of their going astray in 

 their search for ph^asures. 



Passionately fond of llowers, of late years my 

 attention has been conlined almost exclusively 

 to roses. No other llowei- has so many admir- 

 ei-s, and it is likely thai, through all time, the 

 rose will continue to Ih> queen. How I wish, 

 friend lioot. you could be heie when the roses 

 are at their best I I am very sure you would 

 become enthusiastic. Why I there 'lasn't lieen 

 a day since roses began to bloom, with no bud 

 to be seen. Shortly after the middle of May. 

 Count d'Espresmenil offers its first opening 

 buds with its brilliant green foliage; then an- 

 other and another of (he beauties opens out. 

 varying from pure white through all the shades 

 of pink and red to almost black, and, again, 

 from the lightest tint to a substantial yellow; 

 and when winter finally freezes up the bushes 

 solid, it will be with here and there a bud or 

 flower. .lust now I have been out and counted 

 some si.xty buds in various stages of develop- 

 ment. Some of these will open out; but as it is 

 now the very last of October, some of them will 

 never get to be more than buds, for in this cool 

 weather they develop very slowly. 



To answer Mrs. Fisher"s question, grafting is 

 very little used in this country in propagating 

 roses. Hudding is somewhat used, and layering 

 occasionally, but the great majority of roses 

 are raised from cuttings. Besides these four 

 ways of increasing roses, there is a fifth, and it 

 is the way mine are usually increased — that is, 

 by buying. Except a few kinds that can not 

 easily be raised from cuttings, you cau buy 

 small roses and have them sent by mail for 

 about a dime each. Larger plants can be had 

 for an increased price. 



For outdoor culture you can have almost any 

 kind of roses: but if you live in the North, the 

 perpetuals. or hybrid rcmontants. are the ones 

 to get for a number of years' growth. Let me 

 cau f ion you. however, that perpetuals are not 

 perpetual in their blooming. They will give 

 you a full crop in June, and an occasional 

 bloom or set of blooms afterward. Roses don't 

 bloom nearly as well on bushes as they do in 

 catalogues. 



But I'll tell you a trick worth knowing. As 

 soon as the buds are big enough to be .seen on 

 my remoiitants. I carefully pick them all off i)y 

 pinching with thumb and finger nails, and I 

 try to keeji them all picked off till about the 

 time the common June or annual roses are 

 done blooming. In spin- of my vigilance, some 

 of them will escape notice till they are so largt; 

 that I have not the h<art to pick them oft', .so 

 that quite a showing will be left, giving nu; no 

 trouble to cut two bushels on a .Sunday when 

 they are at their best, and from that to one or 

 two vases tliroughout the season, to decorate 

 the church. You see. if you allow them to- 

 bloom at their own -weet will they will (;x- 

 haust their strength, giving you a mass of 

 bloom when everybody has roses; but if you 

 don't let them bloom w hen they want to, they'll 

 keep at it afterward. 



But it will not do pick off the l)uds of an an- 

 nual bloomer, for they will not bloom out of 

 their season. Moss roses (and nearly all mosses 

 are annual) I cut back savagely in spring, cut- 

 ting back half or two-thirds uf 1 h(U)ush. and 

 they giv(; finer blooms, liesides riiaking them 

 later. Mosses are among the very hardiest. 



None of the hybrid remontants (please re- 

 member that "remontant" is the right name 

 for what are (juite commonly called " perpetu- 

 als") have any shade of yellow, and I doubt 

 w hether there <'ver will be a yellow remontant. 

 If you want yellow ro.ses outside of the June 

 i-oses, you must have teas. Although the teas 

 are luore tender than the remontants, they are 

 more abundant bloomers, and for house culture 

 away ahead. 



Let me tell you the secret of success with 

 hou5e roses, at least at our house. It is, simply 

 to wash th(! plants at least once a wcn^k with 

 soapsuds. Hold the plant over a dish-pan of 

 hot soapsuds, and drench it thoroughly. Then 

 dissolve hen manure (other will do) in water, 

 and pour som(> of the liquid part on the .soil in 

 the pot every week or so. 



You may enjoy I'ooting some cuttings. In 

 February, March, or April, take a cutting two 

 or three inches long, having on the end of it a 

 bud half blown or more: cut of!' the bud, stick 

 the cutting in the ground, and cover a tumbler 

 over it. 



There, I suppose that's all the room roses 

 ought to have in Gleanings, and I haven't said 

 half I wanted to. . C. C. Mim,ek 



Marengo, III., Oct. 31. 



A BEGINNER'S EXPERIENCE WITH ROBBING. 



SOME OF HASTY'S EARLY EXPERIENCE. 



For some time back E. E. Hasty has been 



writing an interesting series of articles in the 



Bcc-/ccepcr.v' RciJ/ew, entitled "Comments on a 



Beginner's Day-Book. " In the last article 



there is one paragraph that is so interesting 



and so well told that we place it before our 



readers. The first sentence, in fine print, is an 



extract, written years ago, from the day-book, 



following which is his comments: 



"October 5th. Contracted the entrance to stop 

 robbing'." 



The apiary previously to any purchase had 

 been almost totally neglected for some time. 

 Where swarming prevails as it does here, a 

 percentage of the colonies in the yard will turn 

 up queenless late in the season, get weak, in- 

 fested with fertile workers, and. very likely, 

 infested with larval bee-moths also. A carni- 

 val of robbing out these new colonies had been 

 held in my brother's apiary, and he was too 

 busy farming to interfere. I interfered- on one 

 occasion, I remember. A colony not far from 

 my window, at which I heard a rumpus every 

 morning before I was up. I shut up tight. I 

 knewMtwas not good for bees to be shut up; 

 but I pitied this colony so— attacked at untime- 

 ly hours so tnany days in succession and hold- 

 ing out against it notwithstanding the disad- 

 vantage of having no regular bottom-board, 

 that I fixed things and shut them in— surely be 

 destroyed if I didn't, you know. Well, it turned 

 out that they were not being robbed at all. 

 They wei-e simply a particularly enterprising 

 nation of robbers; and the hot weatlier, with 

 the additional heat which they made by trying 

 to get out. melted the whole establishment 

 down and drowned the pirates in their own 

 stolen honey — a tolerably fair greenhorn's 



