THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
207 
the currant-tree system of multiplying roses, and if the work 
is well done then, eighty per cent, of the cuttings will root. 
People who are blessed with a spirit of patience and perse¬ 
verance may continue, or begin, to put in cuttings of roses 
in the open ground or in frames all through the winter months, 
say from November to February, and in favourable seasons 
may be wonderfully successful. But the risk of loss is great, 
and the only argument in favour of winter propagation is, that 
in peculiarly sheltered spots, where an early bloom is desired, 
winter pruning must be practised, and the prunings may be 
turned to account to make stock, provided only that nature 
will assist the enterprise. In the attempt to strike cuttings 
after the turn of the year, a cold frame and a bed of cocoanut- 
fibre and sand will be immensely serviceable. If the steady 
bottom-heat of a propagating house can be secured, first lay 
the cutting in a horizontal position, just covered with tan or 
fibre, in a warm, moist place for a week or so, to promote the 
formation of the “ callus,” and then insert them upright in 
sandy stuff in a temperture of about 50°, a few degrees more 
or less being of no consequence, provided only that the bed is 
neither burning hot nor freezing cold. 
The Choice op Boses. —For the decoration of the garden 
the course of procedure should not be the same as when roses 
are grown for exhibition. Elegance in the plant, and abund¬ 
ance of flowers, are the principal desiderata of garden roses. 
We will consider the mechanical part first, and then the 
floral. You will want standards and dwarfs to make a good 
plantation, and in reckoning the quantity required, it will be 
well to allow an average of two feet apart every way, and 
there should be three or four dwarfs to every standard. If it 
is but a small bed, your standards must not in any case exceed 
four feet in height, and better if only three feet. But with 
every increase of size in the plantation, you may take taller 
and taller standards, planting them in the order of their heights 
from front to back, if the bed has a front and a back.* 
but from outside to the centre they should rise in height, if the 
bed is to be viewed from all sides. They must be planted at 
distances consistent with their several habits of growth-— 
the strong-growing kinds two and a-half to five feet apart, 
and the weak ones, such as we use for edging (say Fabvier 
and its kin), eighteen inches apart. The effect to aim at is a 
close rich mass of bush roses, with standards rising up out of 
