THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August's.] 
what the experience of walk-makers among our readers 
is, as for the last six or seven months 1 have been 
patiently hearing “those on the other side.” 
Some of our readers will probably recollect, that some 
time last spring when writing about keeping grass 
lawns tidy, and all that sort of thing, that I said I 
would write a whole chapter on making walks after a 
new fashion, or something to that effect, and now that 
“ murder is out,” I may as well at once acknowledge 
that that promise was a “ feeler;” and although in my 
younger days 1 lislied on some of the best lochs and 
streams in the Highlands, and could oven dress a tly- 
liook which a salmon could not resist hy moonlight, 
I confess, 1 never knew a bait answer its purpose better 
than did that feeler, and seldom did I enjoy the sport 
more keenly than on this occasion. 
1 knew very well that there is in books and in gar¬ 
dener's heads a great deal of wrong ideas on the subject 
of making walks, and I was embtied with as much of 
these false notions as any of them until I was driven to 
my wits' ends from the demolishing effects of thunder¬ 
storms on the walks hero ; hut I was not quite suro if 
longer practice had not improved the system of walk¬ 
making, although wo had no accounts of it in our books 
and journals, hence the reason for my feeler. No sooner 
did 1 announce my promise than a host of my own best 
friends and others flew into print to anticipate me—just 
the very thing l wanted. J shall wait a few weeks 
longer to see if any one will answer S. N. V., about 
making walks on hill sides, and will now merely remark, 
that the only novelty worth mentioning which the dis¬ 
cussion on walk-making brought to light in the press 
this season is this, that the best gardeners who wrote on 
the subject have proved by their own confessions that 
they know less on the subject than some of their co¬ 
adjutors who never wlioeled a barrowful of gravel for 
a walk in their lives, or thrust a spade in the ground 
for any thing; and 1 hope ere long many will answer 
S. N. V.’s request about making good substantial walks 
on sloping ground, for I am so pressed about roses and 
other flowers just now, that people would think me daft 
if i were to occupy space in August about making walks. 
Ice. —Another subject—a singular one, by the way— 
has been broached to mo since the beginning of the dog- 
days, and which I must put off for a few weeks, if only 
for the look of the thing, 1 mean the queries about 
ice-houses and preserving ice. Let no one think for a 
moment of building an ice-house; they arc the most extra 
vagant and foolish things in the whole country ; and wo 
shall have time enough to make all the necessary pre¬ 
parations for making walks and keeping ice after the 
frost has cut down the flowers. While I think ot it, 
however, I may tell of a curiosity which is “unbe¬ 
known” to most of our readers, and that is, that there is 
a sheet of water within the compass of this«sland which 
is now covered with natural ice strong enough to allow 
a regiment of soldiers to pass over it. I never learned 
to skate well, but I often took a sliding exercise on this 
ice in the dog-days. 
Let us now turn to the flowers! “ What is the best 
time to bud roses ? ” is the most prominent question one 
hears throughout the rose season; and if a gardener 
gets into conversation on the rose subject, the next 
question is sure to be, “ What kind of slock do you con¬ 
sider the best for roses ? ” And this leads to the third 
question, which is as likely as anything to bo about the 
difference between roses on their own roots and those 
worked on stocks. Now, all these queries arc so general, 
that one cannot give a decisive answer to them. 
The best time to bud all tender roses that are liable to 
be hurt by frost, is at the end of May or in the middle of 
September ; and for this reason, that it is their nature 
to grow as soon as they receive the juices of the plant 
or stock on which they are worked; and if they arc put 
287 
in or budded after the end of Juno until as late in Sep¬ 
tember as that they shall not push that season, their 
young growth will not have sufficient time to ripen ; and 
if a hard winter follows, although it may not kill the 
young rosos outright, it will so cripple them that they 
do little good for years afterwards, if at all. After the 
middle of September few roses, if any, will start or grow 
from buds then inserted, but remain inactive, like the 
rest of the buds, until the following season ; and, on the 
whole, gardeners prefer such buds to those which start 
the first season—I mean buds of tender roses. 
The best lime to bud all the hardy roses is when one has 
time to do it; for all times that the bark will rise from 
the wood is equally good, from March to October. I 
have known Hybrid i’erpetuals budded at the cud ot 
August begin to grow late in October when tho weather 
was line, and get pinched the following winter, and even 
a length of six inches of young growth killed ; but that 
made little difference tho following season,as little buds 
were formed at tho bottom ot the killed shoot, which 
grew away as if nothing was amiss with their leader. 
Buds that were put in last September, or such as were 
budded before last midsummer, and have grown six 
inches, should now have tho remaining portion of the 
branch or stock above them cut oil, that the cut or 
wound may be covered as much as possible with the 
young formation of wood just now being formed rapidly 
by the descending sap. It is a very bad practice to 
leave pieces of the stock branch uncut lor any length ot 
time after the bud has grown out freely, or at any rate 
after the young leaves are ripe and begin the formation 
of wood, or, say, after the middle ot -July, because tho 
descending sap will collect at the union and form a 
swelling of young wood, which should go partly to heal 
the wound ; instead of which, it is interrupted just as if 
tho shoot had been ringed, or a ring of bark taken off, 
or as if it had been tied with a piece of wire. The first 
scent which physiologists obtained ot the descent of the 
sap and tho formation of wood, was from such cause as 
this of stopping the natural current, when it was found 
that tho swelling caused by the ring or tic was always 
on the upper side of tho obstruction. 
A keen amateur of my acquaintance holds out stoutly 
against all this “ tine doctrine,” as he calls it, and main¬ 
tains that the convenience of tying the young head from 
a rose bud to the six inches of tho branch in which the 
bud was inserted, and so avoiding the trouble ot put- 
ting sticks to bold them instead far more than counter¬ 
balances the raj)id covering ot tho cut behind the 
budded part; and after all, perhaps, tho “best way”is 
that which suits our own notions best, apart lrom all 
philosophy. 
As for the best stocks and no stocks, there has been a 
good deal written this very season in the different gar¬ 
dening works, and more particularly in Ike Gardeners 
Chronicle; and even nurserymen of the very highest 
standing and respectability have crossed swords or, 
grey-goose quills—for and against different varieties ot 
roses better fitted for stocks than any others. Now, 
when we hear two or three first-rate nurserymen, or as 
many old gardeners, of extensive practice, hold out that 
black is blue and that blue is white, our opinions get 
staggered, unless we are in the secret ourselves, and sec 
like tho juryman who exclaimed, alter hearing counsel 
on both sides, that they were both right. I havo often 
witnessed a keen controversy between two gardeners on 
a subject on which both ot' them were right, it bad 
been the fashion among us gardeners, till very recently, 
to think that a subject would look poor indeed in print 
unless it was well larded with a number ot loug, hard 
dictionary words—the application, or force, or meaning 
of which lew of us understood. This tailing cannot ho 
laid to the charge of the different writers on the subject 
of rose stocks; but yet “ thero is a tide in the affairs ” of 
