458 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 16 . 
banks of tbe Thames, grows a beautiful plant of the 
Rose Blairii, No. 2. It was planted in 1841, or 1842, 
and now reaches fifteen feet high, and spreads accord¬ 
ingly. T received full permission to do with that Rose, 
and other strong climbers, just as I chose. Well, in 
November, I pruned all the young small wood along the 
bottom of this Rose to one inch, and I saw, that if 1 
pruned the rest that day not one out of ten of these 
hard one-inch pieces would ever push again. I should 
have the old story of Blairii and bare bottom over 
again, and of that there was enough already. I went 
home, and never saw that Rose again till the middle of 
February, when I made a second turn at pruning, by 
cutting the second sized shoots all over the plant; 
these were cut to different lengths, of from six inches 
to two feet, and a few a little longer, where there were 
open places on the wall to cover; by this time, most 
of the top shoots, and the strongest, were nearly 
opening the top buds, and the little inch spurs I left 
in November as hard as an old bone bad buds on 
them that I could just perceive, and no more, so I 
went off again without cutting any of the strong 
shoots. I left them to the first week in April, when 
everyone of them was more or less in leaf; the buds 
on the inch pieces had made some progress also in 
the meantime, and the buds on the shoots which 
were pruned in February were getting full also; now 
was the turn for shortening the strong shoots, and 
you would be surprised to see how few of the buds 
below half their lengths were swollen. All, except the 
last six or seven buds near the top of each shoot, 
seemed not to feel the influence of the season yet, and 
when I cut them to different lengths, taking away all 
the forward buds, what buds I left on those strong, 
luxuriant shoots were not then nearly so forward as 
those on the little spurs at the bottom of the wall, and 
some of the buds on tbe intermediate shoots were 
actually in leaf some days before the very top buds on 
the plant. 
If you understand the force and value of having the 
buds on the weak lower branches as forward in the 
spring as those at tbe top of the tree, be it Rose, or 
Apple, Pomegranate, or Polycarpus, if there is such a 
tree, you will agree with me what shoots of a tree ought 
to be pruned in the spring, and which ought not to be 
pruned in the spring ; also what trees and bushes ought 
to be pruned-in just now, and what bushes, and trees, 
and plants ought never to be left unpruned till the 
spring. A weak, scurfy, scrofulous, or puny scrub of a 
tree, whether a Rose, Ribes, or Rosemary, whether for 
fruit, flower, or fume, should never be left unpruned 
after the middle of November in each year of its sickly 
life, and if pruned six weeks earlier than that the sick¬ 
ness is the more likely to vanish. A young, healthy, 
vigorous-growing tree or bush, ditto, ditto; or an old one 
which threatens to run out of bounds, ought not, on any 
account, to be pruned till late in the spring; never in 
the autumn; and as almost all trees exhibit parts that 
; are neither strong, vigorous, or thriving, as did that 
very strong Blairii, No. 2, it follows as naturally as day 
follows the night, that there are very few trees indeed, 
within the garden, which ought to be pruned all over 
the same day, or the same week or month. In short, 
to keep in keeping with my text, I hold it to be sound 
philosophy to prune parts of a tree in the spring; and I 
affirm it as bad practice to leave the weak parts of a 
tree unpruned till the spring; and this rule or law holds 
\ good through the whole kingdom of trees and bushes, 
and through many of the smaller states lower in the 
scale; as, for instance, take a good specimen of a 
I Scarlet Geranium, from which you wish to make cuttings 
! just now, and if you understand the drift of my argu¬ 
ment, does it stand to reason that you can improve it 
j in shape, or equalise the strength, by taking ofi' all the 
tops, weak and strong, the same day or the same week. 
All the shoots are on the move now, and the strong ones 
will burst into new growth after cutting much sooner 
than the little shoots, and so sure as they do, the little 
ones will have a still less share of the rising sap, and 
besides being little, as they are, they will get crippled 
into the bargain, and die at last, if you do not cut them 
off by way of saving appearances. 
It was only the other week that we had a new Gera¬ 
nium with two weak shoots and a strong one; this strong 
ono flowered, and cuttings were made from the other 
two till we had them stumped nearly to the quick, six 
weeks before the strong one was out of flower, and cut 
down in its turn. Now nobody could tell, next August, 
if the whole three were not cut the same morning. 
You may very naturally inquire now, if that be so, 
how is it that they do not cut the large Geraniums 
which we see at the shows on the same plan, which 
they never do. There is no trouble in telling that. 
Nothing is so plain as their reason. Their plants, and 
all plants, never have all the shoots of the same size 
or strength—this is how they do it; they cut the 
smallest shoots much lower down than the strong 
ones, and they allow of only one, or, at most, two 
new branches to come from the bottom of the little ones, 
the rest are rubbed ofi'; but on the bottom of the big 
shoots they allow five or six new shoots to come; then 
it is just like all the world over—a strong man will find 
as much difficulty in fighting against five ordinary men, 
or in providing for their keep, as a little man with 
narrow shoulders would find in pushing against, or in 
favour of, one or two ; so it comes to the same thing, at 
last, with many trees and flowers, but never with Roses 
and most trees which require much looking after. 
ROSE-CUTTINGS IN THE OPEN AIR. 
The a b c of striking Rose-cuttings in the spring is to 
get forward little shoots, or, at least, short ones in a 
forward state of bud, and even if the top bud is in leaf 
it is all the better; this soft top is cut ofi'very carefully, 
but not to the old wood; the rest of the swollen buds are 
broken off also, and what is left round the bottom of the 
broken buds may not be seen, but, rest assured, there are 
many little buds round most of them, and they will 
come in their turn. I could not see a single bud on the 
little spurs I left on Blairii when I pruned in Novem¬ 
ber; but I could more than see them in February—I 
could then feel them ; then you see, that by pruning off 
swollen buds of Roses in the spring you put the cuttings 
back, as it were, to November ; and yet they are full of 
spring sap, and this sap must go somewhere, up or 
down; part of it will go down and make roots if the 
cutting is in a right way, and part will go to push the 
invisible buds into daylight. The cuttings are put into 
small pots, and close round the side in a firm compost 
of half sand and any light earth that comes in the way; 
the pots are plunged to keep them moist, for that is all 
that Rose-cuttings require in the spring. If they were put 
into sand, or soil, without pots, they would be either too 
wet or too dry, and when a Rose-cutting is full of spring 
sap, the least dampmess will kill it in three days; if it is 
too dry it soon shrivels, so that there is a good deal 
of nicety about the thing, and may fail with them for 
awhile, till they get into the right way. But is it not 
the same in everything else ? Who could make hooks- 
and-eyes for a dress at the first start? And the man 
who makes the needles could no more hem a silk hand¬ 
kerchief than I could, on the first or second trial. It is 
so with cuttings, and particularly so with cuttings of 
Roses in the opon air at this season; but that they can 
be done is beyond all question. They must not have 
too much rain, even in pots, or too much sun, or too 
much easterly winds. When they are well-rooted by 
the end of May, they must be turned out of the pots 
