^8' TIIB. CANADIAISf HORTICULTUIIIST, 



would 136 preserved mucli longer. But that is almost an impossibility 

 in our latitude, where the sun at mid-day is so nearly vertical. The 

 best thing we can do is to cover the ground over their roots with 

 a thick mulch, so as to keep it moist and cool. Again, the severity of 

 our winters is very trying to our rose trees. Usually the shoots are 

 more or less killed back, so that they require to be cut down in spring 

 almost or quite to the ground. Some protection can be given to them 

 by sticking evergreen boughs around them, so as to hide the rose trees 

 from sight during the winter, while other kinds that are tenderer must 

 be taken up in the fall and heeled-in in the cellar, where they will not 

 be exposed to much frost. Yet, notwithstanding all these difficulties, 

 we can grow roses of great beauty, and that too in the full blaze of our 

 vertical sun, and fully exposed to the severity of our winter frosts. 



It is very desirable to have a strong soil in which to grow roses, a 

 rich clayey loam is the very best. And this should be well enriched 

 every year, indeed there seems no danger of making it too rich. An 

 excellent fertilizer is made by composting sods from an old pasture 

 with barnyard manure in about equal quantities. And the ground 

 should be well drained, not merely on the surface, but the sub-soil, if 

 tenacious and wet, should be thoroughly relieved of all surplus water 

 by means of sub-soil drains, having a good outlet, so as to carry off the 

 water rapidly and fully. Nevertheless, where clay loam soil cannot 

 be conveniently had, cultivation and liberal fertilizing will largely 

 compensate for its absence, indeed some of the finest roses have been 

 grown on a sandy loam which had been stirred to a good depth and 

 liberally supplied with compost, the best of all composts that of the 

 farm-yard, where the sweepings from the stable are mingled with the 

 litter of the bedding, and thrown out to be trampled by the cattle, and 

 worked over by the pigs. 



The planting may be done either in the fall or spring, as may be 

 most convenient^ and whatever time it may be done, after it is com- 

 pleted, the surface should be deeply mulched with a heavy covering of 

 strawy manure, thick enough to keep the ground cool and moist in the 

 hot days of summer, or to keep out the frost in the cold winter nights. 

 If the trees are on their own roots, that is, have not been budded nor 

 grafted, they should be planted so as to stand at the same depth in the 

 ground as before, when the soil has become settled. But if they have 

 been grafted or budded upon another stock, the rase trees should be 



