NATIONAL ROSE CONFERENCE. 



171 



those growing too close together, or filling up the centre, one or 

 two may be rubbed off. But w r e must not be rash ; if undecided, 

 it may be prudent to postpone the examination for a week or so, 

 when we can still rub the shoot off, but cannot put it back. 



If a plant is carefully pruned from the beginning, it seldom 

 presents many difficulties, as long as it continues in health ; but 

 those which have been neglected for only one year, often require 

 to be cut back sufficiently to form an entirely new framework 

 during the following season. 



For bedding purposes, the pegging- down system is fairly 

 successful with really strong-growing varieties, of not too stiff 

 habit. All must be cut away save two or three (not too many) 

 of the strongest shoots, which are bent down and pegged over 

 the bed. They will break and bloom all over, and in late summer 

 other shoots will probably spring from the base, which will take 

 the places of the old ones, if necessary, in the following spring. 



Standards of the Gloire de Dijon race may be trained to form 

 umbrella- shaped or weeping roses, on a similar system. 



Pruning for Exhibition. 



Pruning for exhibition is a different matter altogether ; our 

 object in this case is to get the finest possible blooms, and the 

 exhibitor will not generally care a fig about the shape of his 

 plants, so long as he has better roses to cut than his rivals. If 

 number is required, the plants must be multiplied, as but few 

 blooms must be expected from each. 



Pruning in this case loses most of its art : almost all, and, 

 in some cases where there is not sufficient ripeness, all the new 

 wood will be simply cut away, and the resulting shoots thinned 

 as soon as separable, according to the habit of the variety. 

 Exception must be made in the case of some of the strongest- 

 growing H.Ps., which will bloom but sparsely and too late, if 

 they are cut back too far ; and of certain varieties, which are apt 

 to bear coarse flowers, but this can sometimes be remedied by a 

 discretion in thinning the flower buds. 



Tea Roses. 



We now come to the pruning of Tea Roses in the open. 

 Eoses of this class, if well fed, and spared by the frost (of which 

 latter contingency I have but little knowledge), might be pruned 

 but little ; and, in a rich soil, in a district of mild winters, or 



