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ON THE CULTURE OF ROSES. 



rose-trees. These rose-trees were never intended for small gar- 

 dens, and scarcely for large ones : they are the gigantic mate- 

 rials for fields of flowers high and wide, of long and deep ave- 

 nues, the foreground figures fair and fragrant in the glades and 

 dells of park scenery, where rides and drives invite. The 

 bramble is another brother of the rose family, and this, as well 

 as the mountain-ash, rambles at large by ravine and crag, grow- 

 ing freely in any reasonable situation, and in spots where neither 

 grazing nor tillage can be carried on. Surely, then, we may 

 reasonably hope to establish a climbing rose in a locality where 

 two brothers of the same family already flourish. 



The rose and its prop must be planted young in well-prepared 

 earth ; for, be it remembered, they will just grow and flower in 

 proportion as they are fed, and therefore such a spread of foliage 

 as is here expected requires something like a vine-border to give 

 the necessary supplies of food, &c. 



I do not write to please those parties who know so little of 

 rose culture as to imagine that roses will not climb very high 

 trees and flower freely. The Rosa arvensis climbs to the top of 

 an arbor vitse in the grounds here 20 or 30 feet, and its long 

 and gracefully bending shoots may be seen dangling from the 

 branches of high trees in the woods here and elsewhere. Loudon 

 mentions (Arb. Brit., p. 790) Eastwell Park, Pains Hill, Clare- 

 mont, Pepperharrow, Spring Grove, and Fonthill, where similar 

 specimens may be seen of Rosa arvensis, and particularly the 

 Ayrshire and the evergreen roses, producing a fine effect, flower- 

 ing-, and even forming festoons among high trees. I need 

 scarcely add, that in length and strength of vine many of the 

 cultivated roses equal and even surpass the wild rose. I have 

 seen climbing roses against a wall here and at other places make 

 shoots 20 feet long in a couple of seasons, and flower profusely ; 

 therefore, if the Rosa arvensis and its varieties climb trees of their 

 own accord, surely art might train the twigs of other climbing 

 roses in a track where nature unassisted prompts them to run. 

 There is no plant of easier culture than the climbing rose ; for 

 all roses grow freely from cuttings, and thrive well in the com- 

 mon corn-land of the country, and even in places and soils 

 where corn could scarcely be produced. They never fail run- 

 ning and flowering every year ; and this running propensity, or, 

 in other words, this truly desirable quick habit of growth, has 

 hitherto caused this section of the rose family to be excluded 

 from collections, or, if not excluded, to be unmercifully cut in, 

 in order to keep them in bounds, which cutting, owing to the 

 peculiar habits of this section of roses, amounts to nothing less 

 than cutting off their heads ; for if they are cut at all, the head 

 or flowering part, being at the tip, is sure to be sacrificed, whe- 



