Book II. 



ROSE. 



891 



6547. Propagation. By seed for new varieties, and chiefly by layers for continuing approved sorts. 

 They are also multiplied by budding, cuttings, and suckers. 



6548. Bu seed. Ripe hips containing the seeds are obtained from semi-double and single flowers, and to 

 increase the chance of new varieties, these should be taken from plants that have been planted among, or 

 near to the sorts of which a cross is desired. We are not aware that Knight's mode of extracting the 

 stamina from the one parent, and dusting the stigma with the anthers of the other, has been applied to 

 the rose, but there can be no doubt it might be done in many instances. In France and Italy, the usual 

 mode is to form a plantation of double and semi-double sorts mixed indiscriminately, and take the result 

 of promiscuous impregnation. Guillemeau has given lists of such as are adopted for this purjoose : and 

 Villaresi raised most of his beautiful varieties of the Rosa indica, by planting them among as many va- 

 rieties of the European roses as he could procure. Austin, nurseryman at Glasgow, and Lee of Ham- 

 mersmith, mix all the sorts of Scotch roses together in the same plantation. The other mode may be 

 compared to cross-breeding at random ; and this to random-in and in-breeding. 



6549. Process. Few of the hips are ripe before October, but most sorts that come to maturity in this 

 country, will be fit to gather by November. The seeds of the rose require to be one year in the soil before 

 they vegetate ; they may either be immediately rubbed or washed out, and preserved among sand or cin- 

 der-dust : or the hips entire may be so preserved a full year, when the husks will be perfectly rotten, and 

 the seed being separated and sown in February, wiU com.e up in the May or June following. The best 

 place to lay up the hips is the floor of a cellar, such as that used for storing roots ; but in whatever way 

 they are preserved, care must be taken that they are not laid together in such masses as to produce fer- 

 mentation ; and that the heap be turned over frequently in course of the twelve months, to promote 

 decay. The seeds should be sown in a soft moist soil, such as that composed of equal parts of sand and 

 vegetable mould, in a shady situation ; it may be covered from a fourth to half an inch, according to the 

 size of the seeds, and the surface should be kept moist by watering in the evenings, till the plants have 

 come up and attained a few inches in height. Early in the second spring, they may be transplanted in 

 rows a foot apart every way, and a year afterwards again transplanted to a distance more or less, accord- 

 ing to the sorts. Here they are to remain till they flov/er, Avhich varies in different sorts, from the third 

 to the fifth j'ear, but most commonly they flower the fourth summer. 



6550. By layers. The common mode is to lay down the young shoots of the preceding summer late in 

 autumn, or early in the succeeding spring, and then, with the exception of the moss-rose, and one or two 

 others, they form rooted plants by the next autumn. But it is new found, that if the same shopts are 

 laid down when the plant is beginning to flower in July, they will, with a few exceptions, produce roots 

 and be fit to remove the same autumn, by which a whole year is gained. Such sorts as do not root in one 

 year must be left on the stools till the second autumn ; but layers made when the shoots are in a growing 

 state, and furnished v/ith healthy leaves, root much mors freely than shoots of ripe wood. After the 

 plants are removed from the stools, they are planted in nursery rows, and in a year, the blossom-buds 

 having been carefully pinched off from the first laying down, they will be fit for removal to their final 

 destination. The stools are then to be pruned, and the soil stirred and enriched on the general principles 

 already laid down. (2004.) 



6551. By suckers and dividing the roots. Many of the commoner sorts admit of being rapidly multiplied 

 in this way ; and the plants obtained may be planted in their final destiniation at once. 



6552. By cuttings. Most of the sorts miglit, no doubt, be propagated from cuttings of the young wood ; 

 cut at a joint Where it is beginning to ripen, and planted in sand and vegetable mould under a hand-glass. 

 But this mode is only adopted with such sorts as strike easily, as the E. indica, and other eastern species. 



J 6553. By budding. This mode of propagating roses is adopted chiefly with the rare sorts, and such as 

 are difficult to proi>agate by layers ; for it is found, that plants so originated, even though on stocks of 

 the hardier sorts, are less durable than such as are raised by any of the other modes. But the chief use of 

 budding in the culture of the rose is to produce standard roses, or to produce several sorts from the same 

 stock. Standard roses are a modern invention, it is generally supposed of the Dutch, first carried to 

 Paris, and about twenty years ago to England. They are highly artificial objects, of great beauty, and 

 form magnificent ornaments to parterres and borders. The stocks are either of the tree-rose {E. villosa, 

 W.), or of any sorts cf woody wild roses, as R. scabriuscula, heterophylla, or surculosa, Sm. They are 

 budded at different heights from three to seven feet, but commonly between five and six feet from the 

 groimd. A stock in the Paris garden, which carries several sorts, has a naked stem of nearly fifteen feet, 

 and there are others at Malmaison and the Grand Trianon, of equal height. These stocks are, both in 

 France and England, procured from woods and copses, and after being planted in nursery lines, are often 

 budded the same summer, sometimes in spring by the scalopemode of budding (2059.), rceil poussant of the 

 French ; and never later than the succeeding spring or summer by the common mode, Voeil dormant, Fr. 

 Generally two buds are inserted on opposite sides of the stock, but often three or four, or a dozen, in 

 alternate positions on the upper six, or twelve inches of the stem. Every stock is supported by a rod, 

 which should reach a foot or eighteen inches higher than the situation of the bud ; to this rod the stock 

 is tied, and afterwards the shoots from the buds, which are otherwise liable to be blown out by high winds. 

 The Paris nurserymen being supplied with stronger stocks than can readily be procured in England, and 

 having a better climate, and more experience in the culture of roses, excel us in this department of rose 

 propagation, and their standards afford an article of commerce with other countries. Their common 

 plants, raised by layers, are also in extensive demand, but in these we equal, if not surpass them. Fine 

 collections of standard roses from Paris, may be seen in the Hammersmith nursery, in the Comte de 

 Vande's garden at Bayswater, in the Duchess of Dorset's at Knowle, and at various other places. 



6554. Final situation. No species of rose, wild or cultivated, thrives well in or very near 

 large towns, on account of the smoke and confined air. The yellow and Austrian roses 

 {R, lutea and L. bicolor) are difficult to flower in any situation, but seldom or never blow 

 in the suburbs of London : even the monthly rose does not thrive so well there as at 

 some miles' distance in the country. Roses are generally planted in the front of shrub- 

 beries, and in borders ; they are also planted by themselves in rose-gardens or rosaries 

 {Jig. 620.), in groups on lawn or gravel, either with common box or other edgings, or 

 with edgings of wire, in imitation of basket-work. These last are called baskets of 

 roses ; the ground enclosed in the basket-margin is made convex, so as to present a 

 greater surface to the eye, and increase the illusion ; the shoots of the stronger 

 sorts are layered or kept down by pegs till they strike roots into the ground, so 

 that the points of the shoots furnished with buds appear only above the soil, which is 

 sometimes covered witn moss or small shells. Under this treatment, the whole surface 

 of the basket becomes, in two or three years, covered with rose-buds and leaves of 

 one or of various sorts. Where one of the larger free-growing sorts is employed, as the 

 moss, or any of the Provence (rose de cramoisi, Fr.) varieties, one plant maybe trained 

 so as to cover a surface of many square yards. Where different sorts are introduced in 



