450 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



If, in the spring, you prune one of them and not ihe other, the result 

 will be that the unpruned one will blossom twelve or fifteen days before the 

 other, and it will produce more Roses, but they will not be so fine. 



If, when pruning, you have left on one of them any feeble branches 

 or twigs, and have removed them from the other, it will be on the stock 

 on which you have left them that the first flowers will show ; these 

 flowers will be produced on the twigs, and will be from twelve to fifteen 

 days ahead of those which will develop on the pruned branches. 



If both are pruned in the same manner, but one on October 15 and 

 the other in February, the one that was pruned in autumn will flower 

 the first. 



By bending the branches of one of them horizontally, about Septem- 

 ber 15, and leaving the branches of the other in their normal position, and 

 if in the spring they are both pruned alike, you will get earlier blossoms 

 from the one whose branches were bent down. 



If one is pruned in February before growth begins, you will gain a 

 little over the other pruned later, and by cutting back very low in April 

 unpruned Roses which already show their buds the flowering is very 

 much retarded. The pinching back of all the shoots which develop after 

 a Rose has been pruned also much retards its flowering. It is necessary 

 that this pinching be done before the flower-buds appear, when the shoots 

 have only three or four leaves. I have often astonished Rose-growers who 

 have examined the system of pruning to which I have subjected certain 

 Roses in my collection. Not long ago I was asked from what country I 

 borrowed my system. "I have not borrowed it," I said, "I keep it." 

 Being very fond of Roses, I arrange to have them for as long a time as 

 possible, and attain this result by a system of pruning which astonishes my 

 brother Rose-growers. And this is the way I manage : If I am dealing 

 with a number of Rose-trees together, I prune all the branches of those on 

 the outside almost level with the ground, I lengthen the pruning of the 

 next rank by 5 centimetres, the third row by 10 centimetres, the fourth 

 by 30 centimetres, and so on in proportion. In the middle I leave on 

 each plant a branch of full length, without pruning it at all, and bend 

 it down to the height of the longest pruned ones. Do you know what 

 I obtain by this means ? Early Roses on the bent-down branches which 

 were not pruned, fairly early ones on those pruned long, and very late 

 ones on the plants cut quite down to the ground. I sometimes manage 

 to get all this on the same bush by pruning three-quarters of the branches 

 to the ground level and the rest of them to 20 centimetres, except one 

 which I do not prune at all. It is the unpruned one that gives the first 

 blossoms, and I cut off this branch when its flowers are over. 



