ON DIFFERENT WAYS OF STRIKING R08ES. 



521 



to work : — Good, well-ripened shoots of one year's growth are chosen and 

 cut into lengths of about 15 centimetres, taking care not to use the tips 

 of the shoots, which are usually too soft. The cut should be close under 

 an eye. A border with a good aspect is prepared of earth well mixed 

 with sand if the soil is too heavy, and the cuttings are placed ten centi- 

 metres apart, taking care only to leave two eyes of them above ground. 

 The soil should be heaped up sufficiently to firmly hold the buried part. 

 When it gets very cold the border should be covered with litter or dry 

 leaves, which should be carefully removed when the temperature becomes 

 more moderate. One year after striking, Hoses thus treated are ready to 

 be planted out. In clayey soils, instead of mixing sand with the earth of 

 the border, small trenches are made with a trowel, about fifteen centi- 

 metres deep, and these are filled with sand. 



Another excellent way of striking H.P.'s consists in making the 

 cuttings in winter and keeping them in a cellar until February or March, 

 when all that have formed a callus are potted (three in a pot of six cent i- 

 metres diameter) and put in frames in a hotbed, giving them a temperature 

 of 12 to 15 degrees centigrade. They generally root very well, and in 

 April are planted out in a well-manured soil, where they grow vigorously. 



By the first method 1 have obtained magnificent plants without 

 having been obliged to transplant them. 



Cutting* on a Hotbed. Instead of working with a cold frame or in 

 the open air, particularly in September and October, certain varieties strike 

 much quicker, and sometimes much better, if one takes the trouble to 

 plant them in a hotbed giving a bottom heat of 15 to 25 degrees 

 centigrade. There is, moreover, no further trouble to take with them 

 than when in a cold frame. For wintering they should be placed in pots 

 with soil similar to that in which they will afterwards grow. 



The Editor of the Iievue de V Horticulture Beige remarks that hotbeds 

 made of manure give bad results from the emanation:.; of the her] 

 blackening the leaves of the cuttings. To avoid this defect he advises 

 the following : — 



Instead of making the bed of manure I have used turves and grass, not too fresh 

 cut, but mown about twenty-four hours and slightly dried. This bed gave a very 

 strong bottom heat for a fortnight. The experiment was made in a two-light 

 frame, filled exclusively with cuttings of ' La France.' The cuttings were 

 made in August, as usual, of lengths bearing three leaves each, and preferably 

 with heels. The bed was covered with two layers of earth, composed of lumps 

 of rough peat laid upon crocks, and then a bed of -00 metre of old soil mixed 

 with coarse sand.. In this compost the cuttings were planted, then sprinkled with 

 water, the lights put on, and shaded with liussian matting. The shading remained 

 until the cuttings were rooted ; they were watered four times a day, air being given 

 sparingly as long as the bed was in a state of active fermentation. Treated in 

 this way for about three weeks, 90 per cent, of the cuttings when lifted from the bed 

 were found to be furnished with a good tuft of roots. The others had a few roots, 

 or simply a callus, but very few had blackened, as one knows so often happens with 

 cuttings made in a bottom heat of dung. The method I have just described 

 appears to be worthy of every consideration, since cuttings rooted in August or 

 September can be planted out in the autumn, establish themselves in the winter, and 

 make fine bushes in the following year. 



The Bearing of Climate on the Question of Own-root versus Budded 

 Boses. — We know that some varieties are as vigorous and Horiferous from 



