October 30. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
01 
little if only to clear away the remains of the flower- 
stalks ; so that the similarity is complete between the 
Raspberry and the Perpetual Rose under this system. 
Then, as to training, any conceivable way will do for 
either; but here comes a difference .at last. The Rasp¬ 
berry will do very well standing upright, but the Rose 
will not, at least not except in very careful hands. A 
man or woman who can so manage an old Peach-tree as 
to have the young wood at the bottom of the wall as 
plentiful and nearly as vigorous as at the top, need not 
fear of getting Madame Laffay, and the like of it, to 
blossom without any pruning more than is stated above. 
All this is perfectly proved in some hundreds of speci¬ 
mens in the reserve rosary here this season, and there 
is no question at all about the matter in the minds of 
those who have seen the good effects of it, and the plan 
is to be continued from year to year. There are hun¬ 
dreds of suitable places for a row of vigorous Roses—a 
hedge, espalier, low wall, or what not, and this is the 
best way to treat the perpetual sorts in such places. A 
low Rose-hedge, along the side of a walk, would look 
very well in many situations; the top of the hedge need 
not be more than a foot from the ground when it is 
trained, although the shoots may have been four feet 
long before they are trained down in this hedge-fashion. 
If good strong plants of the free-growing kinds were 
planted at four feet apart in a row they could easily be 
brought to this hedge-fashion, or the shoots might be 
formed into little arches, as those of the Raspberry are 
sometimes trained. Or if we propose three rows of 
Roses to be planted along the side of a straight walk, 
the first row next the gravel might stand eighteen inches 
from it, and the plants be trained quite low, after the old 
fashion of training on mossed-beds, the shoots trained to 
the right and left; the second row might be trained in 
low arches, not more than two feet high in the centre 
of the arches, and two feet or thirty inches from the first 
row ; the third row might be an espalier, say from four 
to five feet high. The espalier row need not be more 
than two feet from the centre row, if one was tied to a 
limited space; all the plants in these rows might be 
planted at two feet apart in the row so as to get the 
whole effect intended; before the end of the first sea¬ 
son, and after a few years, every other plant might be 
removed. 
One more suggestion. All these Roses should be of 
the free-growing Hybrid Perpetuals, and every one of 
them, by all means, to be on their own roots, for 
this reason, that if worked plants are used, and their 
shoots trained very low, as is proposed for the first row, 
it would aggravate the disposition of the wild stocks to 
throw up numerous suckers; besides, these Roses will 
grow very well in many kinds of soil in which the Dog 
Rose stocks would not feel at home; and the Manetti 
Rose, which is the best to use on very poor, light soil, 
would neither increase or diminish the strength of such 
Perpetuals as I contemplate. Altogether, I think it is 
simply a foolish plan to bud these kinds on low stocks 
at all for any purpose or soil whatsoever. It may be 
that some of them would come sooner to a marketable 
size if worked on the Dog Rose; but as a set-off to that, 
let every one put in a hundred cuttings next week— 
which, by the way, is a very good time—of Hybrid 
Perpetuals, and another hundred of the Manetti Rose, 
or tire Boursault, or any other Rose used for stocks, and 
the Perpetuals on their own roots will come to market 
twelve months before the same kinds if budded on the 
said cuttings as soon as they were fit, let alone the time 
and trouble in budding, tying, &c., &c. 
About the end of October, or early in November, is as 
good a time as any, if not the best time, to put in cut¬ 
tings of all the strong Hybrid Perpetuals, and of all the 
Climbing Roses. Let the cuttings be from four to six 
inches long, and if slipped from the old wood, so as to 
carry a head with them, all the better; and let only a 
couple of inches of the cuttings be left out of the ground, 
with a little sand at the bottom, and the soil pressed 
hard to them, in some shady place, most of them will 
root and make fine plants by next autumn. D. Beaton, 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Scarlet Geraniums : Preserving in Winter.—I 
hardly feel sure if I am right in alluding thus promi¬ 
nently to this subject here. Last season it received a 
due share of attention, and Mr. Beaton has not forgotten 
it during the present; many of our friends, however, 
by their enquiries, seem to be of his opinion, that in the 
multitude of counsellors there is safety—while so 
differently constituted are we, that others may be apt to 
exclaim : “ well now, whose opinion am I to follow, the 
very diversity puzzles and confounds me.” Eor all new 
beginners there is much truth in the latter statement. 
I well recollect, when first poring over Loudon’s Ency¬ 
clopedia of Gardening, how bamboozled I was in having 
the practice of some half-dozen of the first gardeners 
presented for my choice, and the relief I felt in turning 
quietly to the one master-mind of an Abercrombie, or a 
Nicol. I would not wish, by any means, to contribute 
to a similar perplexity, though I would wish every 
reader, however few his plants, to have the knowledge of 
that identical practice presented, that was most suitable 
for his individual circumstances. 
It may be a satisfaction to some few, to state, that every 
mode that has been mentioned in this work for preserving 
the plants during the winter, has been tried by me with 
a fair portion of success, with the exception of attempting 
to preserve them during the winter in the beds in which 
they grew out-of-doors, though I have no doubt that could 
be done, if a waterproofed covering was provided. In my 
case, without that covering, the plants saved, and they 
were scarcely a tithe, though moved a time or two in 
spring, had always a disposition to be leafy, and to bloom 
late. For our window and balcony friends, no mode, 
that I have tried, is equal to preserving the plants in 
the pots, boxes and vases, in which they grew—getting 
the shoots well-hardened before winter—removing the 
soft parts, and keeping them in a dry and dormant 
state, until they begin to bud by the returning warmth 
of spring. The only disadvantage I have felt from this 
mode of the plants remaining for several years in the same 
place, is, that the blooms, though numerous, are apt to 
be small, from the exhausted nature of the soil, but after 
the flower-buds appear, this is easily remedied by rich 
top dressing. The great advantage of this Harry More 
system, is, that such plants will survive the winter far 
better and easier, in haylofts, sheds, &c., than any 
plants taken up out of the ground in similar places, 
whatever be the amount of previous preparation. But 
here are a number of friends, who object to the whole 
system of thus preparing plants, and so far disfiguring 
the beds, so many weeks before it is necessary to remove 
them—who duly chronicle, with the zest of an enthusiast, 
the late period, that with the aid of a mat now and 
then, they have been able, from their little plot and 
vases, to surprise a friend with a bunch of flowers—who 
will tell you, that they have no place in which to store 
their vases and baskets, and still less shed room, in 
which to put the plants from these little beds and 
vases, and that the whole space they can command 
is a small pony stable. In addition to all this, they 
decidedly object to have their vases and baskets out of 
of sight during the winter, when they are so orna¬ 
mental in themselves, and may easily be made to hold 
some hardy plants; but, in compliance with what they 
found in The Cottage Gardener, they have got a 
