10 POTTING OF ROSES. 



It is the best way to use half of rotted turf and half of rotted da * ; 

 if it be not too light to let water pass freely, add a little turfy peat, 

 broken through a, sieve that would pass a hazel nut. Trim the roots, 

 to get rid of all bruises ; and, in the first instance, choose plants, the 

 roots of which are within a moderate compass, for pot culture, and 

 are well taken up. Selec ; pots that will receive the roots without 

 much cramping; carefully put the soil between and among the fibres 

 and larger roots ; strike the pots on the potting table, and poke the 

 soil down so as to be firm. 



If the roses be dwarf, follow the directions about pruning at once, 

 and let them be placed in a cold frame, watered, to settle the earth 

 about them, and covered up. This should be done in the Southern 

 and Middle States from November to February, when those for forc- 

 ing should be put into the greenhouse, gently increased in tempera- 

 ture, well watered, and kept growing hard ; any buds that show 

 should be removed, and they should be allowed to complete their 

 growth, and then be plunged in the open ground, and there the wood 

 be permitted to ripen. When the leaves have fallen, and the wood is 

 fairly ripe, they may be pruned, by removing all the weak shoots, and 

 shortening the strong ones ; the balls turned out to examine, and if 

 matted with roots, pots a size larger be given. They may then be 

 placed in a cold frame, plunged to their rims, until the period you 

 want to force them. They will flower better the second year than 

 they could have flowered the first, and if the blooms are all picked 

 off again as fast as they show, instead of being allowed to perfect 

 themselves, the growth will be more free ; and by growing hard to 

 complete it early, and leaving them out again to ripen, they will allow 

 of being pruned into a handsome form, being carried into the house 

 sooner, and will flower most abundantly, instead of having one or two 

 sickly shoots with their miserable half-starved blooms. At the end, 

 they will have as many as you please to leave eyes for, pruning them 

 the same as you would standards or bushes out of doors, and the 

 blooms will come as rich, as handsome, and as well colored as any iu 

 the open air. Roses may then be forced at almost any season . only 

 they ought to undergo the same forcing a season or two without 

 being allowed to 'flower, that they undergo the season they are to be 

 forced into bloom. And this will answer season after season when 

 they are once well established, for they require only the usual shifts 



