JUNE. 
185 
as either the Bourbon or Bengal Boses, which with me are the most 
certain to root. I put in the first week of December last, one hundred 
cuttings of the Souvenir de Leveson Gower, and on examining them to¬ 
day I find that all but six of them have rooted well. My course of 
treatment is this :—I have a bed containing four inches of clean washed 
o 
sand; the bottom is bored full of two-inch holes, over which is spread 
straw, to prevent the sand from falling through. The pipe which con¬ 
ducts the hot water through my greenhouse is completely boxed up 
under the bed, which affords a strong bottom-heat, and I have sashes 
over the cuttings which confine the heat that arises from the sand. I 
keep the cuttings moist by watering with clear rain-water, at about 
70*^ temperature. The glasses must be kept close, only occasionally 
raising them to give air. 
I have not only succeeded in rooting Roses in this way, but a great 
many varieties of hard-wooded plants. It may, perhaps, be an old 
plan, but to me it is entirely a new one—I have never seen it used, 
but only adopted it, after experimenting in various ways in rooting 
plants from cuttings. 
Lancaster. T. H. H. 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
It has been asked—Is landscape gardening an art or a trade? I 
should say it is as much one as the other. Mechanical arts are trades. 
The fine arts are more scientific, and call forth a greater exercise of 
mind, refinement, and natural good taste. Landscape-gardening may 
be defined as a science, practical in its developments. It embraces 
good taste in arrangement, combined with scientific and practical 
gardening, applied to beautify the landscape. 
Simple gardening, or gardening without landscape prefixed, is also a 
science, practical in its developments. ^ It embraces botany, and a 
knowledge of the various kinds of care each plant requires. Chemistry 
also aids it. 
Landscape-gardening, like good taste, is a gift, and every lover of the 
fine arts is supposed to possess the gift of good taste. The height of 
good taste is the love of nature. But it is necessary first to familiarise 
ourselves with nature’s forms before we can form a model of taste. 
It is the pursuit of every good gardener to know the real character 
of the plants he is dealing with. It is the gardener’s business to assist 
nature and provide for the wants of the plant, that it may develop 
itself in healthy beauty. So, on these grounds, we would claim that it 
takes a gardener to be a gardener. 
I would not count a man not a landscape-gardener because he was 
not born and brought up in a garden ; but he should be a practical 
gardener. It is the study of a lifetime to be a proficient in all the 
branches of gardening, and too much time cannot be afforded to mere 
extraneous branches. 
I never meant to say that because a man may be a proficient in any 
other business that he is unfitted for the duties of a landscape gar- 
