126 
ROSE. 
sufficient room, and be all exposed to view. The soil 
should be well dug and manured previous to planting 
them, and they should be dressed at least once in two 
years, with a mixture offresh loam and manure, which 
will cause them to grow well and flower finely. After 
they have remained several years in the same ground 
and begin to decline in vigor, take them up, and divide 
them, selecting the best of the shoots, prune them 
down, replenish the soil with fresh earth, and replant 
them, and they will flourish vigorously. 
The pruning of hardy bush roses is essential to 
their flowering well. This in small gardens is much 
neglected, as very seldom more is done than to cut 
off the dead tops, but in these cases the flowers are 
neither so fine or numerous as they would be, if reg¬ 
ularly pruned. In pruning these roses, cut out as 
much of the old wood as possible, but so as not to 
disfigure the bush, then shorten the last years growth 
according to the strength of the shoots, or to one-third 
or half their length, also remove the suckers, as they 
exhaust the plant. 
When it is desirable to prolong the blooming season 
of hardy roses, alternate bushes maybe left unpruned 
till the buds on the upper part of the bush have grown 
out an inch or two; then cutoff the shoots just below 
where the buds have so grown out, which will cause 
those on the lower part of the shoot to grow and come 
into flower a week or two later. The shortening of 
the shoots so late in the spring does not in the least 
weaken the bushes, which grow as vigorously and 
flower as freely as in the usual mode of treatment. 
