OX THE PRUNING OF ROSES. 



441 



century that China and Bengal Roses began to be known ; it is less than 

 a hundred years since the crosses between the Musk and the Indian 

 roses, the Bengals and the Centifolias and so many others came to claim 

 a place in our gardens. And this place has become so large that the old- 

 fashioned Roses are no longer given any room to speak of. This is not 

 the place to discuss the question as to whether many of the Provins 

 R oses — the Rose of the painters — and many other of the discarded 

 beauties would not be preferable to certain of the so-called Perpetuals 

 which are never perpetual. But let us get to our business : that is to say, 

 pruning and the principles which should guide it. 



How to Study the Principles of Pruning. 



The gardener's art is one of observation. When I wished to know 

 why it was necessary to prune in one way rather than in another, I went 

 to Dardilly, Charbonnieres, Brindas and Chaponost — villages round 

 Lyons — to see how the Gallicas and Dog-Roses behave in their wild 

 state. The Gallicas are the ancestors, more or less related to the 

 Provins Roses ; the Caninas are wild Briers ; and I confine myself to these 

 two species, which are quite enough for the demonstration I wish to 

 make. 



The Gallicas I have found were represented by small bushes with 

 stolons showing just above the ground, only allowing scope for a very 

 modest pruning of the branches, of which the oldest did not look very 

 aged, although of a very decrepit appearance. 



The wild Briers, however, were giants of three metres in height, with 

 very thick strong stems, and with their tops thickly covered with Roses. 



At one and the same time, I had under cultivation some of these 

 Roses and some garden Roses, and having pruned them all alike to within 

 30 centimetres of the ground Provins, Centifolias, Noisettes, Teas, 

 Hybrid Perpetuals, Bengals, Multifloras, Banksias, Damascs, Caninas, 

 Gallicas, Sec. (all of them being well established and healthy), I obtained 

 the following results : The Provins Roses, the Centifolias, the Noisettes, 

 some of the Multifloras, the Banksias, some of the Teas, the Damascs, 

 the Caninas and the Gallicas produced magnificent growths, of different 

 forms, but not one single flower. On the other hand, some of the Teas, 

 some of the Multifloras, the Hybrid Perpetuals, and the Bengals flowered 

 admirably. 



Thus, with the genus Bosa, we find ourselves in the presence of a 

 section of the vegetable kingdom of which the physiology is somewhat 

 complex. It is very important, then, for professional gardeners or 

 amateurs to take account, on broad lines, of how the different species of 

 the genus behave when pruned. An expert, if he wishes to become very 

 well-up in the subject, will even study each variety on its own account ; 

 and, thus educated, he will no longer pass for one of those butchers of 

 the time of Herod who massacred the Innocents. 



It will be remarked, that in the above experiment all the Roses were 

 uniformly pruned, and that nevertheless part of the Tea Roses and part 

 of the Multifloras flowered and the other part did not. This fact is 

 disquieting to amateurs. One ought also to include the Noisettes, and 



K 



