April 23,1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE CARD ENEL 
333 
ROSE-GROWING FOR BEGINNERS. 
(Continued from page 307.) 
TREATMENT AFTER BUDDING. 
SOME people advocate, on paper, that newly inserted buds should 
he made to start in the autumn following—that is to say, within a 
month or two of their being put in. However well this practice 
may answer in other parts of the country, I have no hesitation in 
saying that here it wovdd be a complete failure. Our summers are 
far too short to allow the young shoot to become ripe enough to 
stand through the winter, and I have noticed that where young 
shoots which have started out naturally during the same season 
have been killed back by the frosts, that the whole bud has perished 
entirely. Anyone who has tried both systems will, I fancy, not 
have much difficulty in pronouncing an opinion. At any rate I 
vote for the dormant buds and the strong vigorous growth of the 
following spring. 
In the spring, then—for this neighbourhood we will say in March 
—all the shoots of standards and dwarfs should be cut clean off about 
1 inch beyond the inserted buds. In reference to this cutting off 
the shoots so closely a'l at once, there is a great difference of opinion. 
• :Some nurserymen still adhere to the old plan of leaving two or 
three buds, natural buds I mean, on the branch. These are called 
sap-buds, because they draw the sap past the inserted bud, and it is 
further supposed that if the shoots be cut right down to the inserted 
.bed-white yet it is in a dormant state, that in many cases the inserted 
hud would perish and the plant be lost. I know a case of a foreman 
who went to be manager of a place where Tea Hoses are grown very 
•‘'extensively. These were all budded on the seedling Briar. The 
firslLysarj^s foreman was there, when spring came and he proposed 
to cut away the top3 of the stocks right down to the buds at once, 
as-h*d always been his practice, the owner would not hear of it. 
•SSo,-after a good deal of argument pro and con., it was resolved that 
•erne^of the great French Rose-growers should be written to on the 
■subject. ■ His answer was, “ Cut them down at once.” They did 
-sO, atld'they have done so ever since, and do so now. Soon after 
till ’cutting away of the tops, the buds will become prominent and 
"cjiiTckly burst out and begin to send up thick red shoots. In my 
•opinion, at this stage they are very beautiful, perhaps from the 
fact.that anybody who has seen this happen before realises what a 
.rich treat there is in store for him. There is no doubt about it 
■that a Rose-grower gets twice the amount of pleasure out of a plant 
-«fchat he has propagated with his own hands as he does from one 
which he has bought in the ordinary way, for it is to some extent a 
child of his own, and “ blood is thicker than water.” 
As the young buds grow they will require to be fastened to 
'sticks to prevent the wind from blowing them clean out, an occur¬ 
rence which often happens in windy weather, and which, when it 
"does so happen, is most annoying. Buds in standards are parti- 
"Cnlarly liable to this, being so much further from the ground, and 
consequently more exposed to the wind. They are much more 
difficult to fasten so as to be safe too ; still another very good 
reason why we should cultivate dwarfs in their stead. Thatch 
pegs, or other similar stakes, are capital for dwarf plants, and being 
placed to the plants as soon as the shoots require to be tied, they 
may remain all the season for the plants to grow to. For standards, 
£>histerers’ laths split down the middle form good sticks for supp irt- 
ang the young shoots, the lower part being attached to the stocks 
with a tie or two of raffia. 
AFTER TREATMENT OF STANDARDS. 
The quickest way of forming the head of a standard is to pinch 
•out the top of the shoot as soon as it has formed four leaves. This 
will cause the bud to throw out three or four shoots, and later on 
•these may be again stopped or pinched to break and form branches 
again. By this means we might get a fairly formed head the first 
:season. It is hardly necessary to say that this method prevents our 
getting any blooms from the plant for the first year. It would not 
£e advisable to continue this pinching beyond July, otherwise the 
ishoots might not ripen sufficiently to withstand the winter. Dwarfs 
may be pinched back in a similar manner; but, as a rule, all except 
’the very moderate growers give us two or three shoots, without any 
pinching, during the first season. 
NOVELTIES. 
Most of us have read at one time or another in the newspapers, 
•or elsewhere, very cheap offers of plants, shall we say, at perhaps a 
tithe of their proper price. These are generally offered as being 
fine plants.” Those of us who avail ourselves of these oppor¬ 
tunities of getting bargains generally end by discovering that 
advertisers’ descriptions are apt to be somewhat disappointing; a 
sanguine buyer probab’y sending his cash for, say, twelve “ fine 
plants’’ of something cr another, which in ordinary horticultural 
commerce would fill the largest basket in the trade, together with 
most elaborate instructions for the forwarding of the same by 
goods train, is not agreeably surprised to receive a small box, 
postage od., which being opened, discloses to view a dozen small 
rooted cuttings of the articles offered. With these preliminary 
remarks I wish to point a moral in reference to the subject in 
question. Of the many new Roses brought out each year, how 
many stand the test of time ? Probably not one in a hundred. 
The state of affairs seems to be, that if a raiser can get a Rose 
with one or two good qualities, his fertile imagination supplies the 
rest. 
The very rapid way in which new Roses drop out of sight in 
most cases, reminds me of nothing so much as of one of those 
go-as-you-please competitions, w here a dozen lunatics start off at 
the firing of a pistol to ascertain how much injury they can each 
do to their respective constitutions during a period of six days. A 
dozen may start, but before many hours go by several of them 
discover that they are not “ in it,” and so quietly withdraw ; and 
thus the affair goes on, one after another dropping out, until at the 
finish two or three poor wretches just manage to drag their weary 
bodies as far as the wanning post, all the others having long since 
disappeared—so it is with most new Roses. 
But stay, perhaps I was wrong or uncharitable in implying that 
Rose growers availed themselves of the assistance of their imagi- 
notions in describing their new productions. Perhaps the new 
Roses grown in France change their colour when brought over 
here and cultivated in our less genial climate—perhaps a dingy 
blue-magenta kind of Rose, with us only fit for cremation, when 
grown in the “ sunny land of France,” is “ of a deep glowing 
crimson, superb, grand, glorious,” or anything you, or rather the 
raiser, likes to write down. Perhaps, too, the habit and grow th of 
the variety undergo a startling change; Roses described there as 
being vigorous, becoming here downright pigmies. I can give an 
instance—or could do, were it not for the law of libel—of a Rose, 
the name of which was in everybody’s mouth, and the plants of 
which are now in everybody’s garden most probably, from which, 
notwithstanding that I had six plants of it, I do not honestly think 
I had half a dozen buds for budding the whole of last season and 
yet it is described as a vigorous grower. The above remarks may 
apply to other lands besides France. I say no more ; let those 
whom the cap fits wear it. I suppose we must make some allow¬ 
ances for the feelings of the raisers too. We must also remember 
that a man is a very bad judge of his own work, and also that man 
is apt to take a very rosy view of whatever he does himself. I do 
not like to say what follows, but I think I ought, and it is this— 
that if a man brings out a novelty, and names it well, and puffs it 
well, there can be no doubt but that it brings a lot of grist to the 
mill. Those of us who are not beginners will not need, to exercise 
our brains much to enable us to call to mind some instances of 
Roses, which, to put it as mildly as possible, did not come up to the 
expectations of the raisers ; no, nor to the hopes raised in the 
bosoms of the buyers by the alluring advertisements issued by the 
raisers aforesaid. Unfortunately, although there is no law to 
p event a man from exaggerating, or making “ statements net 
borne out by facts”—in favour of his Rose, there is a law, tie 
existence of which prevents me from telling the truth—provided 
the truth damages the sale of the said Rose. 
I should be sorry beyond expression if anyone who is doing his 
bast honestly to improve the breed and add to the varieties of the 
flower we all love so well, should think for one moment that I refer 
to him, or such as he, in the foregoing remarks. There are many 
honest men engaged in raising Roses. Having said all tins 
against the purchase of novelties, let me say something in their 
favour. , 
Anyone who is in possession of a catalogue which shows the 
year in which any Rose was raised, or introduced, can see at a 
glance that every year—I think I am right—sees the production of 
one or two real sterling new Roses. If he will take the names of 
the Roses in the winning boxes at any of the great shows, and then 
refer to his catalogue, he will find probably that none of them are 
more than thirty years old—I speak subject to correction here ar.d 
that most of them are veiy much younger. If he continue to 
consult the catalogue, and compare notes year after year, he will 
find that the new varieties are slowly but surely displacing the old 
ones. Not so in all cases—there are some varieties in which it is 
difficult, I might say impossible, to see any room for improvement 
—Marechal Niel, for instance, or A. K. Williams, or Catherine 
Mermet, or Baroness Rothschild ; that is as far as the blooms go ; 
but in the habit, hardiness, and freedom of flowering, there is, no 
doubt, much to be desired. Again, out of one hundied Roses of 
any one variety, it often happens that peihaps only one or two 
may be ieally fit for show or exhil ition purposes. Some day in the 
dim future, no doubt, varieties will be produced with blooms the 
shape of an A. K. Williams, but of good constitution, vigorous 
