THE ROSE GARDEN. 
257 
half an inch of the stem itself; half way in 
the slit make a cross, cut just through the 
» bark and not into the wood ; with a thin piece 
of ivory, or some other hard substance always 
attached to the budding knife, raise this bark 
from the wood, enough to enable you to tuck 
any thing under it ; then take the branch from 
which you wish to bud, and with your budding 
knife take off about half an inch of the bark 
and wood with a leaf on it. This ought to be 
taken off so thin as to take hardly any wood 
with it. This has to be tucked into the cut 
you have made in the stock, so that the leaf 
shall come where the cross is, and the bark of 
the stock cover it. Then with some coarse 
worsted, or soft bass matting made into narrow 
strips and soaked in water, tie the bark down 
upon the bud, by first laying the middle of it 
across the slit at the end nearest the stock, 
and then crossing it underneath ; then bring- 
ing both ends to cross on the upper part 
nearer the bud, but leaving no vacancy 
between the first and second crossing ; and 
so, alternately crossing under and above the 
the branch, bringing it up to the leaf, and the 
next time you cross it on the top, cross it on 
the other side of the leaf, and continue cross- 
ing till you cover all the slit, leaving the leaf 
sticking out, and at the last crossing tie it. 
Thu3 you confine the bud which is at the 
base of the leaf, and it will unite and form a 
branch ; but, after it is tied, a bit of wet moss 
should be put loosely round it, and be tied 
only tight enough to prevent its coming off ; 
this is to prevent the sun from drying up the 
juice of the bud and plant, before the union 
takes place ; and therefore, if the weather be 
at all parching, the moss will require frequent 
watering to keep it damp, which is all that is 
required. The branch on which this is done 
should be shortened considerably, that the 
moisture may go to the bud; but several joints 
with the foliage must be left beyond the bud 
to draw the sap past it, and promote the union. 
The moss, it must be remembered, being only 
to counteract the heat of the sun, and the 
parching wind, must be very loose and open, 
and also tied on very loosely, with just one 
bit of bass matting ; and if the Roses are in 
a shady situation, and the weather is cloudy 
and not windy, there will not be any moss 
required- It matters not what kind of Rose 
it is that is budded, so that the bark will easily 
raise up from the wood of the stock. When 
the piece of branch is cut from the tree to be 
used for the bud, however thin it may be cut, 
it brings away a little of the wood with it. 
It was the practice once, and many old gar- 
deners still observe it, to lift out the piece of 
wood from the bark of the bud; but this prac- 
tice was useless, and often wrong, for the root, 
as it were, of the bud would often come away 
47 
with the piece of wood, and, although the 
bark would unite with the stock, and the bud 
keep green, it would not grow, because the 
very germ was missing ; besides which, if the 
stock is in good order for budding by reason 
of the bark rising easily, the Rose itself that 
is to be budded into it, is often not in such 
good order for separating. It is, therefore, 
far better to thin the part with the bud on, so 
as not to take too much room in the stock ; it 
is better to leave the wood in, as it forms no 
obstacle to the union. If the stock has three 
or four branches all near the top, or even two 
or three, each branch may be budded in a 
similar manner, because a head is the sooner 
formed, and each one may have a different sort 
of Rose, if that be wished ; in such case a con- 
trast of colours is desirable; white, pink, crim- 
son, and dark ; but in these cases take care to 
have Roses that bloom at the same time, and of 
a similar habit of growth, otherwise one will 
get the start of the other, and they will never 
make a well-formed tree. We have given 
this budding operation in June, because, in 
some seasons, it can be commenced with early 
Roses, and free-growing stocks ; and because, 
through friends, buds can be got at one time 
when they could not be got at another. 
Budding may be successfully practised on 
China Rose stocks, and it is a pleasing opera- 
tion to put in buds of various coloured Roses 
on a well-established China Rose-tree, on the 
front of a house, or on a wall. All you have 
to do in this instance is to select Roses of the 
China, Noisette, or at least smooth wooded 
kinds, as they bud freely on China stocks. 
The branches on which these buds should be 
placed should be strong, and should be worked 
pretty close to the old wood, or perhaps we 
ought to say matured wood ; and the shoot 
should be shortened to within a few eyes of 
the bud, to prevent too much nourishment 
from being lost on the branch itself instead of 
the bud. Smith's Yellow Noisette, and most 
of the Roses of that kind of growth, flourish 
very much upon a well-established China, and 
a good large one, covering a considerable space, 
might be made a very pretty and diversified 
object. Care should be taken to remove any 
vigorous branches of the China from the im- 
mediate vicinity of the buds, as they would 
greatly check the growth of the new sorts, and 
the China Rose will always have a tendency 
to get the upper hand. The stocks intended 
for budding should have all but the two, three, 
or four branches intended to remain, rubbed 
off, and all the suckers removed, that the entire 
strength may be thrown into those branches 
intended for the operation; and the effort of 
the stem to grow anywhere should be, from 
the first, checked, so that all the eyes, the entire 
length, except the top ones, may be removed, 
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