222 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap 



of blue, pink, or white flowers, the balls, or pods, 

 containing which, appear the year before the flower. 

 It is, however, a beautiful shrub, and not less beau- 

 tiful on account of its frequently covering scores ol 

 acres of rocky sides of hills, or on account of En- 

 glish Gardeners believing that it requires bog-earth 

 (though fetched from many miles distance, at vast 

 expense) to make it grow and blow ! 



382. ROSES. — A volume larger than this would 

 not describe the differences in all the sorts of this, 

 which has, for ages, been considered as the Queen 

 of Flowers, the excellences of which to attempt to 

 describe would be to insult the taste of every reader. 

 I shall, therefore, merely speak of the propagation 

 and the management of the plant. All roses may 

 be propagated from seed ; but, as the seed seldom 

 comes up till the second year, and as the plants 

 come to perfection slowly, the usual mode of pro- 

 pagation of all sorts, except the China Rose, is by 

 suckers. These come out near old stems, during 

 the summer ; they are dug up in the fall and planted 

 out. In the spring they are cut down near to the 

 ground, and, the next year, they blow. — The China 

 Rose is so easily raised from cuttings, that little 

 bits, put in the ground in spring, will be trees, and 

 have a profusion of bloom before the fall. This 

 Rose is in bloom, in England, from May till Janu- 

 ary, if the soil and situation both be good. — ^It is very 

 strange that Mr. Marshall should set this down 

 amongst " tender shrubs,^' asid say, that it will not 

 do abroad, except in the summer months.''^ It 

 stands the winter as well as the oak, and, I have, for 

 years, had it, against the front of my house, blowing 

 finely at Christmas, without any attempt at cover- 

 ing. In America, in the open air, it might not be in 

 bloom at Christmas ; but it stands the winter as well 



