CHAPTER IV 



STOCKS 



THE art of budding is both simple and interesting. It is neither 

 difficult nor involved, and anyone who cares to practise can soon 

 become adept and successful. Most authorities describe it as an 

 autumn operation, though we look upon it principally as a task 

 for the summer, beginning early in July. Apart from the fact 

 that the large rose grower is obliged to make an early start to enable 

 him to get through many thousands, we hold that it is better to 

 bud in July rather than September, for if it happens to be a dry 

 August there is but little flow of sap in the following month. We 

 have, owing to numbers, been engaged in budding from early July 

 till close on Michaelmas, and more than once stress of weather 

 has made us late ; but, other things being equal, we are prepared 

 to stand by July as the best month for the purpose. 



But, to take first things first, we must turn to the subject of stocks, 

 because budding naturally assumes the existence of them. We 

 can remember the time when 90 out of every 100 budded dwarf 

 roses were worked on the manetti stock, that being before brier 

 cuttings and seedlings had been generally proved. Then at the 

 end of the seventies, there came along the Italian stock, 

 de la Grifferaie, which for a few seasons was adopted as a stock 

 on which to work the Gloire de Dijon section and the W. A. 

 Richardson. Later, much later, rosa laxa was tentatively suggested 

 as a suitable stock, and on trial it confirmed itself as being eminently 

 suited to certain roses, and there it remains. But all this time the 

 principal Continental growers were using rosa rugosa, which we 

 treated with contumely and would not touch, until the day of the 

 Weeping Standard rose dawned and we found out that the dog 

 rose would not give the requisite length of stem, but that the rugosa 

 would. So, being practical men, we admitted this stock and soon 

 found out that our rigid bias against it was sheer prejudice and 

 nothing more. It is now being freely used, more especially because 

 of the shortage in briers, both for dwarfs and standards. 



ii 



