March i6, 1882.] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 215 
are substantially built of bricks, and tbe beds resting on arches. 
A window in the front wall is Very useful both for giving light 
when making the beds and gathering the produce. The house 
is easily darkened by closing the shutter outside. The path and 
walls are kept damp, plenty of tepid water being kept handy. The 
temperature is kept at about 00°. Mr. Kingston’s method of grow¬ 
ing Mushrooms is as follows—Collect the droppings from stall-fed 
horses daily, place them in a shed, mix with them one-tenth of 
loam, turn them daily, spread them in the day to dry, throw 
them in a heap to ferment at night until sufficient is collected for 
a bed, make the bed firm, and spawn it when the heat is subsid¬ 
ing ; cover with about 1| inch depth of soil in a week or ten days, 
according to the temperature. Mr. Kingston also grows superior 
Seakale in the same house under the Mushroom beds.—G. W. 
Cummins, The Grange , Wallington. 
PRUNING ROSES. 
The question of pruning is now evidently exercising the minds 
of Rose-growers very much. Hardly a post arrives without bring¬ 
ing me one or more letters asking me, “ What do you advise as to 
pruning ? My Roses are pushing so that I am afraid of leaving 
them much longer ; and yet if I prune now, and the lower buds 
start, and the ‘ nipping frost,’ which we have been now so accus¬ 
tomed to, comes, will there not be a rude 1 farewell to all my 
greatness V ” There are, as is always the case, a number of good 
reasons on each side, for the advocates of a theory never fail for 
want of support; and it is because I have no theory to support on 
the matter, but would prefer being guided by experience, that I 
do not hesitate about giving my opinion. It may be erroneous, 
but facts are stubborn things. 
I have carefully looked through my own small lot, consisting 
probably of about eight hundred dwarf plants, and do not find 
the lower buds at all prominent, while the buds at the extremities 
have pushed out to the length of 2 or 3 inches. It might, there¬ 
fore, perhaps, be considered to be the safest plan to leave them alone, 
let the lower buds remain dormant, and defer pruning until later ; 
but experience with me says this is a mistake. Some few years 
ago we were in a similar position, and I then thought it might be 
better to defer the pruning until a later period ; but I found that 
so much vigour had gone out into the plants, that when they were 
pruned the shoots were spindly and the blooms small. I should, 
therefore, make no difference as to the time of pruning, but do it 
now, as I suppose most of us have been in the habit of doing. 
Then as to the manner of pruning. My own inclination is more 
and more towards what is called hard pruning. By this I mean 
cutting down (I am alluding to dwarfs) to within three or four 
buds, and not troubling oneself too much as to the shape of the 
bush, cutting out thin and spindly branches, and leaving the 
centre free for circulation of air. Where practicable it is better 
to have the lower bud pointing outwards. To this system I know 
it is objected that if you cut the strong-growing kinds, such as 
Madame Clemence Joigneaux, Edouard Morren, Paul Neyron, &c., 
so hard you will get no bloom at all. There may be a few, per¬ 
haps, to which this objection might apply, but I am not even 
quite sure about that ; and where irregularity of height is of no 
moment these might be left, and a few pruned hard in order to 
see the effect. The rosery where I have seen the system of hard 
pruning most rigorously carried out is in that of the worthy Vice- 
President of the National Rose Society, Mr. Geo. Baker of Rei- 
gate ; and a finer collection of plants (and that not by any means 
on a good Rose soil) it would be impossible to see than his 
garden, notwithstanding its disadvantages, produces. I have 
also of late thought that the old advice of merely shortening 
the tips of Tea Roses when pruning is a mistake. Last winter 
compelled most Rose-growers to cut their Teas as hard as their 
Perpetuals, and I do not think that they had any cause to repent 
having done so. With me at least they shot up as strongly as I 
could wish, and gave me plenty of fine blooms. As there has 
been so little frost this year (we can hardly call it winter), there 
will be necessity for thus pruning them ; but, perhaps, many of us 
will think it better to follow out a plan which has succeeded so 
well. Of course where long-growing kinds or Noisettes are trained 
to walls this would not do, and the tips must in those cases be 
shortened. 
The above had been written before I had read Mr. Moorman’s 
article ; but, although it travels over the same ground, yet as an 
independent testimony it may be as well to give it a place. There 
is no use in attempting to prophesy as to the character of our 
Rose season, whether it is likely to be early or late, a good or a 
bad one, for everything depends on the character of the next two 
months. It is assumed that because we have had no winter we 
must have a bad spring ; but there is no rule in such matters. 
Meteorologists who cannot forecast with certainty for twelve 
hours would be the first to discourage any such forecasting; but 
1 may say that the other day I was talking to an old parishioner, 
who said, “Well, sir, about fifty years ago we had just such a 
winter—not a bit of snow, and hardly any frost.” “ Well, John, 
and what sort of a season afterwards ?” “ Oh, a terrible good’un 
surely ; we had a fine spring and an early harvest.” I trust that 
the same may be true now.—D., Deal. 
Where only a few dozen Roses are grown the whole may be 
pruned on one day ; but where they are grown in large numbers 
or by hundreds they should be pruned at two or three different 
times, as this will be the means of securing a much longer suc¬ 
cession of bloom. Here we have Rose beds in several parts of 
the pleasure grounds. Some are in very sheltered positions, while 
others aie much exposed, and those most sheltered are pruned 
first. Some of them were pruned two and three weeks since, and 
others will not be pruned yet. Those pruned first are producing 
strong early shoots, which will be well advanced before the latest 
have formed any leaves, and in this way we may not be able to 
have a great number of blooms at one time ; but they will be 
coming in for many weeks, and this is what is most desired by all 
who have a constant supply of cut flowers to provide. 
The second blooms, which are always much valued, generally 
come in August and September, and sometimes in October, and 
the time of pruning in spring has much influence on the last 
Roses as well as the first. About this time last spring there 
was not a leaf to be seen on our outdoor Roses ; now many of 
them are quite green, and with the hopes of obtaining a few very 
early blooms several of them will not be pruned at all ; and as 
the buds are already visible our period of cutting outside Roses 
will stand a very good chance of being considerably lengthened. 
When Roses are not in leaf at pruning time none of us seems 
much afraid to cut them well down ; but when the shoots are 
2 or 3 inches long, as many of them will be now. it is with regret, 
if not fear, that they are cut. In consequence many of the shoots 
are left much longer than would otherwise be the case, and the 
result is that many of the plants have very long bare stems at the 
bottom and a bushy top, which is neither very ornamental nor pro¬ 
ductive of fine blooms. Dwarf Rose bushes are all very liable to 
assume this form, and if they are to be useful pruning must not be 
spared. Every stem, whether it has the appearance of starting 
into growth near the ground or not, should be cut down to 2 or 
3 inches from the soil, and after this, although they may be a little 
longer in starting, it will be surprising where the number of young 
shoots have come from, and it will be still more astonishing when 
it is seen the improvement which will take place with them before 
the end of the season. We saw many plants of the kind treated 
in this way last year, and the results were satisfactory in the 
highest degree.—J. Muir. 
The Roses—both Teas and Hybrid Perpetuals—I am rather 
puzzled about. My Teas on a low south wall are showing buds 
freely, especially Marie Van Houtte, Amazon, and others, many 
of the shoots being 6 inches above the wall. The top shoots 
of many of the Perpetuals are from 3 to 4 inches long, and in full 
leaf. I did not prune last year before the last week in March ; 
after that time we had along period of cold drying easterly winds, 
and many of the “ Perpetuals ” succumbed, and others appeared 
to be in a lingering state throughout the summer, although at the 
time of pruning the lower buds looked promising. I pruned hard, 
as I usually do. My soil is heavy loam, clay subsoil, situation 
about six miles north of Bristol. The plants were mulched in the 
autumn of 1880. I have stated the case as clearly as I can, trust¬ 
ing some of our more experienced rosarians will kindly come to my 
rescue. My own impression is to prune at once ; yet I am afraid 
to begin. A few years back my Roses bled very much after 
pruning them during the first week in April.— Thos. Hobbs, 
Bristol. 
[Our correspondent must either prune at once or not at all. 
We have shortened the shoots of our Roses to bold buds just 
awakening into life, not to the almost invisible dormant buds at 
the base of the stems, and we have no fear that the plants will be 
exhausted by “ bleeding.”] 
STRAW SHELTERS. 
Having read in the Journal (p. 175) “ A Doctor’s Gardener’s ” 
plan for making straw shelters, also the one following, I have 
thought it might be of use to some of the readers of the Journal 
to know the method we use here for making them. It is very 
simple, and we do not use any wood frames. We twist a straw 
band the required length and thickness, and lay it on a bench and 
