vui PROPAGATION 157 



Eoses and some other sorts, when grown on their 

 own roots, form suckers at some little way from the 

 plant, and these when rooted may be cut off and 

 transplanted to form plants elsewhere. A cut on 

 the underside of the sucker beneath the ground will 

 encourage the formation of roots. 



Dwarf plants of any free-growing variety may be 

 "layered." To perform this operation the shoot 

 must be bent down so that it will touch the ground 

 some little way from the tip. A small hole should 

 be prepared here and filled with rooting material, 

 such as leaf-mould, sand, and cocoa-fibre dust : the 

 shoot should be cut halfway through and then 

 longitudinally so as to form a tongue, and then 

 pegged into and planted in this hole, when in due 

 time roots will be produced and a new plant 

 formed. 



It is possible also to raise Eoses from mere buds 

 or eyes as vines, but letting the leaf remain. There 

 are other methods of inducing the wood and buds of 

 Eose shoots to put forth roots, but for the propaga- 

 tion of established sorts there is nothing to equal 

 budding with winter grafting for the rapid multipli- 

 cation of rare varieties. 



Roses from Seed. — A chapter on propagation 

 would be very incomplete without at least some 

 reference to the raising of Eoses from seed, the 

 principal means by which new varieties are gained, 

 and to the hybridising or crossing of special sorts 

 which has been so successful of late years with some 

 raisers. Unfortunately I can give no minute 

 practical details, not having attempted it myself, 

 and successful hybridisers being naturally unwilling 



