November, 1916 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURE 
39 
Propagating Roses by Fall 
Cuttings 
Climbing roses are propagated 
mostly by hardwood cuttings 
made in the fall, many cut flower 
roses may be propagated in the 
same way. 
Hardwood cuttings are taken 
from the dormant wood of 
winter, while softwood, or green- 
wood, cuttings are taken when 
the plants are in active growth. 
To make a hardwood cutting, 
good strong, well-ripened shoots 
of the past summer’s growth 
should be selected. These are 
better if cut between the time 
the leaves fall and freezing 
weather. If left until after cold 
weather there is danger of injury 
from freezing. They should be 
cut into pieces of 5 or 6 inches, 
with the upper cut just above a 
bud, and should be tied in 
bundles with raffia or with string 
that does not rot easily if exposed 
to dampness. After labeling 
plainly they should be buried in 
moist sand, tops down, and 
placed in a cool cellar or buried 
in the open ground below danger 
of frost. They should be planted 
in the open ground in the spring 
about or a little befoie corn- 
planting time, so that one or 
two eyes, or not over one inch 
of the cutting is above ground, 
which will leave 4 or 5 inches in 
the ground. Care must be taken 
not to injure the calluses that 
have formed while the cuttings 
were buried. Sometimes bettei 
results ate obtained by planting 
in partial shade. 
Frequently cuttings made in 
winter or early spring do nearly 
as well as those made in the fall, 
but in the North there is always 
danger of the wood being injured 
during the winter. 
U. S. Dept, of Agriculture. 
We answer questions. 
Fall Measures to Combat 
Rose Diseases 
Hose gardeners should take 
advantage of the fall season, say 
specialists of the U. S. Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, to make 
their plants as free as possible 
from disease by methods that 
can not well be followed during 
the growing season. It is true 
in general that whatever the 
disease, the affected portions of 
the plants should be cut out in 
the fall and the shortened bushes 
sprayed. It is assumed, how- 
ever, that spraying will not have 
been delayed until fall, but will 
have been carried on as a control 
measure at frequent intervals 
since spring. The diseased wood 
removed in the fall, together with 
the old leaves and debris under 
bushes, should be burned. In 
case of attacks by rusts, canker, 
and leaf spots, the diseased wood 
or leaves should be removed and 
burned even during the growing 
season. 
For powdery mildew, the con- 
trol sprayings for the summer 
spores should be with lime-sul- 
phur or potassium sulphide. 
After cutting back in the fall, 
the plants should be sprayed 
with lime-sulphur or strong Bor- 
deaux mixture. The control 
sprayings for rusts should be 
ammoniacal copper carbonate. 
The fall spraying should be with 
a strong Bordeaux mixture. For 
leaf-spot, leaf-blight, and an- 
thracnose, the control sprays 
may be either Bordeaux mixture 
or ammoniacal copper carbonate, 
and the fall spraying should be 
with the former. 
Leaf Blotch 
Leaf blotch, also known as 
black-spot, is a common and 
very injurious disease. The first 
symptoms are the appearance 
of irregularly shaped blackish 
spots on the upper surface of 
nearly full-grown leaves. In this 
stage the trouble may be con- 
trolled by several sprayings with 
ammoniacal copper carbonate or 
Bordeaux mixture, but if these 
precautions are not taken another 
stage of the fungus develops in 
the same spots. The fungus in 
this later stage lives over the 
winter on fallen leaves and sets 
up a new infection in the spring 
which can only be prevented by 
raking up and burning the fallen 
leaves and spraying the dormant 
bushes with strong Bordeaux 
mixture. 
Another disease to which roses 
are subject is canker, which 
starts with the appearance of 
small reddish patches on the 
green parts, generally of 1 -year- 
old growth. Such infected areas 
may increase until the entire 
stem is surrounded and may ex- 
tend for several inches along the 
branch. The only advice to be 
given is to cut away rigorously 
all diseased branches, and it may 
be necessary to cut back entire 
bushes if badly infected. Cover 
the exposed surfaces made by 
this cutting with paint or tar. 
This diseased material must be 
burned and the dormant bushes 
sprayed with strong Bordeaux 
mixture in both the autumn and 
early spring. 
U. S. Dept, of Agriculture 
A Riddle? 
The following extract from a 
letter recently received is not 
clear, perhaps it is a riddle. Who 
can tell us? 
“0 say, you remember the Tail 
End I was to get at the State 
Fair? 0 say, that Tail End was 
so long that I cut off two pieces 
and gave a piece to each of the 
others to make the tail ends all 
the same.” 
