July 24.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
255 
rough hedge for twenty or thirty years, and be the most 
vigorous plant, in spite of all opposition from neigh¬ 
bouring trees; the same planted in a rich flower- 
garden-bed, without a twig to dispute its sway, would 
grow away in that time to double or treble the size and 
strength of the one in the hedge, provided that it was 
allowed its own way, and never pruned or disturbed. 
This is its nature; but no sooner do we cut its head 
off, and put on a less vigorous one, than the natural 
law which governs its growth is violated; the new 
head cannot appropriate all the store which is natural 
for the roots and stem to provide, and sooner or later 
the stem gets hard and dry, or hide-bound, and thus a 
sure foundation is laid for the future attacks of insects, 
disease, and all the other incidents peculiar to a bad 
rose season. It is not, however, for the purpose of 
explaining more particularly, on this occasion, how all 
this is brought about, that I have mentioned the subject, 
but to tell of the way in which I have myself dealt with 
rose-trees having a propensity for breaking out into top- 
suckers, either from the wild stock, or from the collar of 
the union where the first bud was inserted; for I look 
on both kinds of shoots as proceeding from the same 
cause—the pent-up energy of the flowering-sap, through 
some defect in the head. Let us take the wild shoot to 
illustrate my meaning; to rub it off with a view of 
letting some sap or more strength into the head is just 
the reverse of the good intention; you might just as 
well open a canal or railroad to an old out-of-the-way- 
town to increase its traffic, and then lock up the passage. 
My plan is to build a new town at the end of the pas¬ 
sage, and let the old one take its chance. I would bud 
the wild shoot by all means, and never stop it till 
October, even if 1 used a bud from the old head itself. 
By the end of the season, the wild shoot will have made 
a direct and free passage between itself and the roots— 
a free communication between the extremities, which 
was wanting for years past. Next winter the wild shoot 
would be cut three inches above the bud in the usual 
way, the old head would be left entirely unpruned, so 
as to receive as much as it could of the rising sap, until 
such time as the new bud had expanded into a fresh 
head, capable of drawing up all that the roots could 
muster for its wants. I have seen so much of the 
renovating effects of this plan on roses and other plants 
that had I never heard of such a thing as vegetable 
physiology at all, I could lay it down as a sound theory, 
that robber-shoots from the upper part of a plant were 
occasioned by some stoppage of the sap in the neigh¬ 
bouring parts ; that in certain cases, as in that of the 
rose-tree, it is best to let the robber rob away to the end 
of the season, but in other cases, as when the adjoining 
shoots are to be cared for in another season, the secret 
way is to stop the luxuriant shoot as soon as it has 
made a dozen or so of leaves, and that in neither case 
should the strong shoot be rubbed off until the season’s 
growth was ripe and finished, and for this simple reason, 
that the shoot itself, or rather let us say, the formation 
of it, can only open an upward passage ; that two dis¬ 
tinct passages are essential to a perfect circulation in 
plants, and that the leaves only, and leaves of a ripe age 
too, are capable of opening a downward passage. 
Therefore it follows that rubbing off these strong shoots 
cannot tend to any good, and may cause a good deal of 
harm. 
On the other hand, strong suckers from the bottom of 
a rose, or any other plant, can never add to its strength, 
but the contrary, and such ought always to be removed; 
further, side-shoots almost always issue from newly- 
planted rose-stocks, because the head is so much 
cut in that it cannot appropriate all the rising sap 
which must overflow, as it were, in these side-shoots. 
! It is very foolish, therefore, to rub oil' these side open¬ 
ings, because that can only bring the circulation—I 
mean the upward move—to a dead lock ; and it would 
be just as improper to let the side-shoots grow away as 
they would, because the whole strength or sap from 
below might flow into them at the expense of the upper 
parts—-hence it follows again, as we must not rub them j 
off, nor allow them to grow onwards, the only course 
left for us is to stop them, and that is most certainly the 
true way of dealing with them, but it does not matter 
much whether we stop them at the fourth, sixth, or 
tenth leaf—any thing between these will do just as well. 
It is customary with all of us gardeners, nurserymen 
and all, to stop, or cut back a little, the wild shoots on a 
rose-tree as soon as the buds have taken, as we say, for 
two reasons: to keep the wild heads within bounds, so 
that we can get among them, if we want; and by cut¬ 
ting them short, their own weight, “ when stormy winds 
do blow,” will not cause them to snap off just at the top 
of the inserted bud, as they often do where the cross-cut 
was made to let in the bud. Now the two reasons are I 
very good, but the plan itself is just the reverse; and \ 
although we think very little of it, it is not too much to 
say, that nine-tenths of all the diseases incident to 
standard-roses take their origin from these very cuts. 
According to the strict laws of vegetable growth, as far 
as we understand them, rose-shoots that are budded after i 
this time should not be cut before the end of September, i 
and all of them should then be cut to different lengths 
from the bud, according to their strength, or say from 
four inches to a foot; but, if the buds have grown, 
those that have been budded early, as all Perpetuals are 
sure to be, the wild shoots ought to be stopped— but not 
cut back —as soon as the shoot from the bud is six inches 
long. By merely breaking off the point of the wilding 
you stop the onward flow in that direction, which must 
then run into the next open channel which is in the 
young shoot from your bud. The effect of cutting back 
the wild shoot too near the budded part, before the new 
shoot itself is strong enough, is to cause a stagnation in 
the flow, and here is the key of the whole story, and 
which the youngest tyro who reads this letter may 
prove in one week. He may go to the nearest bush or 
tree, select a leading, or any stout shoot of this season’s 
growth, and if is two feet long, let him cut off sixteen 
inches: that is, cut off' two-thirds of its length, which 
is about equivalent to our term “ cut back ; ” then after 
a few days let him try and bud on the stump, and, if 
the bark will rise, I shall never be a philosopher. But, 
apart from reasoning and physiology, whoever will 
take my advice, and plant a bed of the Geant des 
BattaiUei rose, let him or her be further advised, and 
plant a row or ring round it of the rose Souvenir de 
Malmaison. D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Foreign Seeds. —Some time ago, the gardening 
world was aroused by the noise made about “ A Packet 
of Seeds saved by an old Gardener,” this, or something 
like it, being the quaint title of a publication, which 
editors and reviewers for the most part united in praising 
to the echo. At this distance of time, we cannot speak 
positively, but we recollect the impression left on our ! 
mind was, that with a great amount ol shrewd, ealeu- | 
lating, plodding prudence, and withering satire withal, 
there were certain drawbacks, which would have pre¬ 
vented our wishing that without one beware, the seeds of 
this celebrated packet should be sown broad-cast into 
the comparatively virgin soil of the hearts and intellects 
of our rising youth. Be this as it may, the hard rubs 
at certain unworthy practices, created quite as much 
sensation in certain circles, as the arrival of a huge 
packet of foreign seeds does to the mind of the honest 
