April, 1909. j 



351 



Horticulture. 



are dwarf in habit while others are 

 extremely vigorous in their growth. 

 The dwarf varieties must be less 

 severely pruned than the vigorous ones. 

 It is difficult to lay down a fixed rule 

 for pruning them, but the most vigor- 

 ous should be to cut to six or seven eyes 

 and the dwarf varieties be thinned out 

 and only have their shoots shortened 

 to one-half. There should be some old' 

 wood pruned away occasionally to 

 admit of the shrub replenishing them- 

 selves once a year or once every two 

 years, so that part by part they may 

 renew themselves and 



NEVER BE ENTIRELY DENUDED. 



2. Bourbon roses are treated as 

 regards their annual pruning in much 

 the same way as Hybird Perpetuate. 



3. Moss roses are also to be pruned to 

 two or three buds of the last year's wood. 

 These flower only once or twice, but 

 they flower better Upcountry. 



4. China roses are free bloomers and 

 do not require much pruning but only 

 the shortening of their branches. 



5. Tea-scented roses require the strong- 

 est and largest to be kept intact and 

 only shortened, and the other branches 

 cut away. As new branches are thrown 

 out their ends should be nipped, when 

 lateral shoots are thrown out which only 

 flower. The number of these laterals 

 can be reduced with the object of getting 

 fewer but finer blooms. 



6. In the case of Noisette roses the 

 long rods should be sightly shortened 

 and laterals cut back to three or four 

 eyes and the weak shoots removed 

 altogether. 



From a fortnight to three weeks after 

 pruning the buds begin to swell and 

 shoot out into branches. It will then 

 become necessary to regulate the number 

 of these by rubbing off those that would 

 be likely to crowd and entangle. It 

 must be remembered that the more the 

 sap is retarded in its circulation, the 

 smaller is the force with which it acts 

 in developing branches, and the greater 

 its action in 



PRODUCING FLOWER BUDS. 



"Trees only begin to develop flower 

 buds when they have reached some 

 maturity," writes an authority on 

 gardening, "for it is necessary tor the 

 production of flower buds that the sap 

 should have attained some consistency, 

 and circulate slowly. This elaboration is 

 assisted by the extended course it has to 

 run in the lengthened branches ; it is 

 also assisted by broken and interrupted 

 lines." The well-known principle has 

 been taken advantage of to check the 

 sap by pinching and torsion, and even 



partially breaking over- vigorous branches 

 in fruit culture. Rose plants require 

 some attention at the time the flower 

 buds appear. If first class blooms are 

 the object only a limited number of buds 

 should be allowed to remain on the trees, 

 the rest being pinched off. Some fresh 

 nourishment is also necessary for the 

 plant to assist the buds to swell out. 

 Fo^" this some fresh cowduug mixed in 

 water and strained is given by some. 

 After each flowering the soil sho'ild be 

 replenished and the used-up flowei 

 branches cut back. 



The rose, like many another cultivated 

 plant, has 



ITS INSECT PESTS. 



In Ceylon, however, unlike in other 

 countries where the rose is grown on a 

 large scale, it is said to have compara- 

 tively few. There are pests that attack 

 that plant underground and others 

 above. As regards those that are visible 

 the Rose Beetle is a positive nuisance in 

 some places, especially in the country 

 side. A little insect of the size of a pea, 

 of a bright greenish-yellow colour, and 

 known to Entomologists as Anomala 

 varicolor, and a large confrere with dark 

 wing coverts and prominent white belly, 

 Lachnostema serrata and L. mucida, 

 sweep down from scrub and jungle to 

 the rose bushes as evening falls and 

 devour blossom and leaf. Handpickiug 

 in the light of a lantern and dropping 

 the insects into a finger bowl of water, 

 as I have seen done in some bungalow 

 gardens, is of no avail. The only Avay 

 to prevent the attack of the Rose Beetle 

 is by 



MAKING FLOWER AND LEAF DISTASTEFUL, 



by drenching the plants in the evening 

 in water in which tobacco had been 

 steeped, with a dash of kerosine and 

 soapsuds. While keeping off all vege- 

 table feeders from the plant the douche 

 will at the same time act as a tonic to 

 the tree. Sometimes a number of little 

 green insects will attack the young 

 shoots. The tobacco infusion in their 

 case too will be found more successful 

 than anything else. Kerosine and soap 

 are likely to injure the young shoots 

 unless mnde very weak and carefully 

 applied: Sometimes dusting with ashes 

 is successful, but the ashes cannot reach 

 the insects on the underside of the 

 leaves ; but by syringing they can easily 

 be displaced. Caterpillars of certain 

 butterflies and moths will also show 

 themselves during the monsoon rains 

 when insect life predominates, and 

 these will have to be picked in the early 

 morning and destroyed. The best 

 guide to detect the caterpillars is the 



