212 
THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
plant it, how to bud it, how to transplant, keep, and improve it, 
and, at last, how to cut from it the rose that shall bring you 
golden honours in reward for all your toil. "Write it down 
among things not generally known, that brier roses one year 
budded will, if grown vigorously, and severely thinned, 
furnish (generally speaking) finer individual blooms than any 
other form of roses, and to these young briers you should 
look for your supplies from year to year of roses for the ex¬ 
hibition table. Write down, again, that to keep up the stock 
of the right sort of plants, you must plant young briers every 
autumn, and bud those young briers every summer. Write it 
down again, that, whereas garden roses should never be hard- 
pruned, but allowed to grow freely, and bloom plentifully; 
hard-pruning and severe thinning-out of flower-buds must be 
practised in the quarter where the show roses are grown. 
Lastly, to quit these sweeping generalities, write it down, 
that every separate variety has its own peculiar habit of 
growth, and the Brier does not suit all alike, but some thrive 
better on the Manetti, and others better on their Own Boots ; 
and it is well to try every variety, every way, and have as 
many strings to your bow as you can see and handle with 
safety. The figures will indicate, in the obvious distinction 
between old and young wood, how roses should be pruned for 
the production of fine flowers. 
In our practice, budding has well-nigh changed into sum¬ 
mer-grafting, as told ten years ago in the u Floral World,” and 
set forth at length in the “Bose Book.” We bud and bud 
as usual, if the bark rises nicely ; but if, as will happen in a 
season of drought, the bark does not rise nicely, and the core 
does not jump out and leave a clean shield, we leave the core 
alone, and make a true graft of what would have been, in a 
sap-running season, a genuine bud. This is a great stride in 
practice, which perhaps only the advanced practitioner will 
thoroughly understand, for it insures that all the briers to be 
budded will be budded, and that, too, as suits our own con¬ 
venience, without standing still for rain and making a rush at 
the work the moment a black cloud comes in sight. You 
may see something in this to suit the philosophic humour, 
and mayhap, may con over, while engaged in the delightful 
task of marrying 
u A gentler scion to the wildest stock/* 
