52 
THE HOME GARDEN. 
the air till the time for starting. In starting the Jacque¬ 
minot house, he cautious not too give too much fire heat. 
Commence with a night temperature of 45° for the first 
two or three weeks, then increasing to 50° as the young 
growth advances, giving plenty of air at all convenient op¬ 
portunities.” 
To improve the color of roses and the general condition 
of the plants, a decoction of soot is very efficacious. This 
must be collected from a chimney or stove where wood is 
burned, and it may be put into an old pitcher or watering- 
pot, where hot water is to be poured upon it. It should be 
left to cool, and the plants can be watered with it every 
few days. “The effect upon plants is wonderful in pro¬ 
ducing a rapid growth of thrifty shoots, with large thick 
leaves and numbers of richly tinted roses. ” 
The greatest drawback to rose culture is the endless 
number of insects that seem to love this beautiful flower, 
not wisely but too well. Among these nuisances the most 
prominent are the aphis or green fly, the rose-slug, and 
the rose-bug. The remedy for the first is tobacco smoke 
or a hot-water bath ; for the second, white hellebore; and 
for the third, picking off by hand. The hot-water bath 
must not last longer than two seconds at once ; and a table¬ 
spoonful of the hellebore is to be dissolved in two gallons 
of boiling water, and when cool applied to the leaves with 
a whisk broom, the under part as well as the upper. 
A fact not generally known, and somewhat difficult to 
believe, is that a large onion planted near a rose-bush, so as 
to touch its roots, will very much increase the fragrance of 
its flowers. 
