XIV CALENDAR OF OPERATIONS 343 



November. — This is a busy and important month, 

 as it is the time for planting, and the work should 

 be pushed on whenever the soil is fairly dry, for 

 November days are short, and no planting should 

 be done when the ground is sticky. Unpack the 

 purchased Eoses carefully, and lay them in the 

 ground when they cannot be planted at once. Be 

 careful in each detail of planting, for much depends 

 upon it. Stocks of all sorts should now be planted 

 also if possible, but there will not be much time yet 

 for getting standards from the hedges. Where seed 

 is saved it should now be gathered. All wild growth 

 is now to be cut away from budded stocks, leaving 

 one or two buds on those laterals of the standards 

 which have been successfully operated on. Eoses 

 in pots should be brought into cool shelter before 

 severe weather. In northern districts it may be 

 well to place the winter protection round the Teas 

 before the month is out, or they can now be earthed up. 



December. — In most English counties it will 

 suffice to apply the winter protection during the 

 first fortnight of this month, but dead leaves should 

 have been collected by the end of the first week in 

 November, and bracken should have been cut and 

 set ready, in sheaves, not in heaps, as soon as it 

 began to change colour. It is perhaps best to 

 commence the protection as soon as the Eose 

 planting is finished, even though the setting out of 

 stocks has to be postponed. They will do nearly as 

 well if planted at any dry time during the winter, 

 but a severe early frost coming before the bed- 

 clothes are on the tender Teas may cause much 

 lamentation. Now is the time, on dull damp days, 

 to sally forth with the little stock axe and the Grecian 



