138 PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE. 



frost, though a few degrees would do no harm, except to 

 retard them; but artificial heat above forty degrees for 

 any length of time to hard-wood cuttings is almost cer- 

 tain to destroy them. I remember, some years ago, my 

 foreman insisted that we should put in a lot of primings 

 of several new Hybrid Perpetual Roses that we had re- 

 ceived in December from Europe, in our regular propa- 

 gating house. I told him it was useless, but he insisted 

 on being allowed to try. I gave him the privilege, pro- 

 vided he did the work in his own time at night. He worked 

 most diligently, and got three or four of the hands to help 

 him for a week at nights. He had some 20,000 cuttings 

 in the propagating bench, where the temperature of the 

 sand marked sixty-five degrees. The cuttings threw out 

 shoots an inch in length, call used beautifully, and up to 

 that point, any one who had not gone through the thing 

 before, would have said that the operation was a success. 

 One morning, about ten days after putting them in, he 

 called me to witness his victory ; but I astounded him by 

 saying, that for every plant he made from the 20,000 cut- 

 tings I would give him twenty-five cents. He watched 

 and redoubled his care ; but it was no use. In less than 

 a month every cutting had blackened and rotted. 



Had the temperature of the sand never exceeded forty 

 degrees, a large proportion would have rooted ; but it 

 would have taken three or four months to do so; and then 

 the results are never so satisfactory as when cuttings are 

 made from the green wood, taken from plants growing 

 under glass. When, however, there is no greenhouse at 

 hand, but only cold frames, such as are used for Cabbage, 

 Lettuce, Pansy, or Daisy plants, the hard-wood cuttings 

 of Roses placed in such in October, if not too much 

 frozen, will be rooted by April. One of our market gar- 

 deners here has followed the plan for twenty years. His 

 cold frames, where he keeps his Cabbage plants, are well 

 sheltered, and he roots thousands of Hybrid Perpetual 



