84 



From this it may be gathered that Nature's method 

 of getting rid of the undesirable parts of the plant is 

 the slow one of gradual starvation ; and it is wasteful, 

 in that during the process even the strong shoots are 

 likely to become weakened, injured or diseased. 



The Rosarian's aim is to have healthy, well-formed 

 plants ; and from them to obtain either large perfect 

 blooms or many beautiful ones. To do this he must 

 prune. The art of pruning is the scientific cutting away 

 of those parts of the plant which the study of Nature 

 has shown to be useless for producing the best results, 

 and thus to throw the whole strength of the plant into 

 the most satisfactory shoots. 



Pruning consists of two distinct operations : (i) 

 Thinning out, which is the complete removal of all dead,, 

 weak, misplaced, unripe, or otherwise useless shoots ; (2) 

 The shortening of those shoots which are left, to such 

 an extent as to give the best chance of obtaining what 

 is desired. 



The most frequent errors made in pruning are 

 (i) leaving too many shoots when thinning out ; (2) 

 pruning severely the shoots of varieties which require 

 little, if any, shortening ; (3) pruning lightly the 

 varieties which require severe pruning ; (4) leaving Rose- 

 plants crowded with shoots and cutting these to a 

 uniform length all over the plant in the way that 

 a hedge is clipped. 



In thinning out a shoot it should be either cut 

 clean away to the base of the plant, or to its starting 

 point on the older shoot from which it springs, as the 

 case may be. When the plant has been pruned the 

 shoots should be left as nearly as possible equi-distant 



