180 



CASSELL'S POPULAE GAEDENING. 



and when found, not only make a note of them, hut 

 fix, and propagate, and so perpetuate them, to the 

 enhancement of your pleasure and the enrichment of 

 your Eose garden. 



PROPAGATION BT BVBS. 

 This is the hest method that has yet heen devised 

 for the rapid and sure multiplication of existing 

 varieties. Expert grafters may challenge this state- 

 ment, hut they cannot disprove it. True, the per- 

 centage of takes in grafting may be as high as the 

 takes in hudding. They may reach as high as 

 93 per cent, in either hudding or grafting, though 

 such successes are rare; hut then the majority of 

 scions either have or have had at least two, and often 

 more huds ; and, therefore, one or more plants in 

 emhrj'o are wasted in most of the modes of grafting 

 in vogue for Eoses. 



Twofold Character of Propagation by- 

 Buds. — It may surprise some who have hudded 

 many Eoses to hear that, whOe Eoses are taken on by 

 briars or other Eoses, the buds may also be rooted 

 into the soil. Budding Eoses, however, as generally 

 understood and practised, consists'' in so fixing the 

 huds of a Eose into another plant, that the former 

 shall fonn the head, and utilise the root-force or 

 power,, of the other. The foster-mother takes the 

 strange hud in or on, and these two become one life 

 or living Eose. Rose-budding is so generally prac- 

 tised and so well understood, that only practical de- 

 tails need he given here, especially as the art of 

 budding in every possible way will be exhaustively 

 treated under Propagation. A brief description, 

 however, and a few diagrams will make the matter 

 clear to the merest tyro in Eose-growing. 



Conditions of Success in Budding. — First, 

 as to the stock. It must be a Eose or some plant 

 nearly related to the Eose. All attempts to reach 

 to permanent and lasting success through bud- 

 ding Eoses on White-thorns or other plants have 

 failed. Possibly they have been far less tried 

 than the fancies of poets would make us believe. 

 Eose-huds will take freely on all other Eoses 

 and briars of all sorts — the Sweet-briar, however, 

 proving a very indifferent stock for any sort of 

 Eose. 



State of the Stock. — As free growth in the 

 stock is needful to enable the hark to separate 

 freely from the young wood beneath, it may be 

 called one of the essential mechanical conditions to 

 successful hudding. It is probably, however, equally 

 or more important on vital grounds. The moving 

 sap, provided the current is neither too full nor 



strong, carries healing to the wound, and the healing- 

 unites the bud to the stock. 



Bud before leafage, and the bud is either washed 

 off, as it is called, drowned out, or decomposed. This- 

 is easily proved by experiment. Budding before 

 leaves appear fails as a rule. In the absence of leaves- 

 the healing processes are so slow or so completely 

 arrested that the buds are too often left to perish. 

 The selfsame buds inserted by the same agents, in. 

 the same way, a few weeks later, succeed. There 

 is a period or stage of gro-wth most favourable to- 

 the taking of buds, that is, within a month or six. 

 weeks or so after the fuU development of the leavds. 

 To bud earlier in-vites failure ; to hud much later in 

 a workmanlike manner is impossible. Later on the 

 bark is bound so firmly to the young wood, against 

 its inner surface, that the two become inseparable by 

 any easy or fair means owing to the gradual con- 

 solidation of the tissues. 



Condition of Buds most Favourable for 

 Propagation. — They should be plump and well , 

 matured, rather than merely large. Buds from 

 flowering shoots, rather than from gourmands or 

 rank-growing shoots, should be chosen ; round-formed 

 buds are also far preferable to the long ones, how- 

 ever large. These mature huds have a reserve of food 

 and -vital force within them, that 

 enables them to bridge over the brief 

 interregnum of isolation before the 

 stock takes them on without serious 

 loss. More than this, they contribute 

 towards the union of themselves 

 with the stock. Meagre buds are 

 like ill-assorted marriages, where the 

 love is all on one side. They are 

 simply taken in or on by the stocks, 

 or they perish. Plump, well-filled 

 huds, on the contrary, contribute 

 their share to the process of union. 



The huds should be dormant. 

 True, started or growing buds are 

 sometimes used, and if skilfully in- 

 serted, and circumstances of weather, 

 &0-, are favourable, they take well. 

 But to hud with growing buds is to 

 vastly increase the ditficulties of 

 budding, and multiply the chances 

 of failure. Dormant buds, full of 

 vital force and energy, just on the 

 point of starting but j^et not growing, 

 are the very best for budding. They should, as 

 far as maturity goes, be in advance of the stock, 

 or behind, according as it is -viewed. The cur- 

 rent year's wood that furnishes the best buds for 

 budding will, however, as a rule, be more mature 



yig. 10.— Eose- 

 Dranch pre- 

 pared for 

 Budding, 

 and oue Bud 

 Bemoved. 



