210 
REMARKS ON FORCING ROSES AND OTHER PLANTS. 
surface. A low pit will also be advantageous, from the necessity it will entail of 
keeping the plants near the glass, a subject we have yet to enforce. 
The diminished degree of solar light naturally experienced in the winter months, 
renders it imperative that growing plants should receive as much as possible of its 
influence ; and to secure this they must be placed within a foot of the roof, and at 
a sufficient distance from each other to admit the rays of the sun all round them. 
At a place with which we are familiar, where they excel in forcing roses, the angle 
at which the roof is constructed is on a very much steeper inclination than that of 
plant-houses generally ; and we think this a very judicious plan, where it can be 
adopted. 
For the sake of convenience, where expense is not so much an object, it 
must be admitted that a low pit, with a small hot-water apparatus capable of 
being applied in cases of necessity, and having a central raised bed, around or in 
the front of which the attendant can walk, is preferable to one which cannot be 
entered ; as the plants could thus be watered and tended without exposing them to 
the cold air. But for small gardens such an outlay is needless. 
We must now briefly detail the treatment of roses by a friend whose success in 
forcing them has often elicited our admiration. And in so doing, we shall confine 
ourselves, as nearly as practicable, to his own words. There is a popular prejudice 
to the effect that plants will not endure forcing for several successive years, and that 
they become enfeebled by being excited annually into a premature development. But 
the culturist must have been guilty of gross mismanagement whenever roses exhibit 
such a result ; for, on the contrary, by continual forcing they acquire a habit of 
early expansion, and really grow more healthily in consequence. 
Assuming that the plants have been procured from the flower-borders or 
nursery, and forced for one season, they are taken from the house towards the end 
of April, and potted in a mixture of loam and decayed manure, using an abundance 
of the latter. Previously to potting, they are pruned, and each of the shoots is cut 
back to about three eyes. In potting, pains are taken to press the ball of roots 
into a small compass, so as just to admit of a little earth being placed round it in 
the pot ; since it is essential that the pot should be as full of roots as possible, in 
order, while it is in the forcing-house, to prevent water from stagnating, and the 
roots from cankering. The pots chosen are the size known as 32, or those in 
which there is that number to a cast, but larger ones are desirable where the plants 
are old and have reached a greater size. 
After potting, the plants are plunged to the rims in beds in the kitchen garden 
or reserve ground, and a mulching of rotten manure is placed over the beds, to the 
depth of three inches. Should the summer be dry, they are occasionally watered 
in the evening of the day. 
From this situation, a quantity of plants are taken, about three weeks before 
it is intended to begin forcing them, and put in a cold frame or pit, from whence 
they are removed in lots of six or twelve, every week or fortnight, to the forcing- 
