222 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, July 19, 1859. 
generally, also the particular season, or period, in the 
growth of plants when it is safe to operate upon them 
experimentally ; and as every family of plants has its own 
particular period when it is more safe to put it through , 
any unusual ordeal, practical doctors have an immense i 
power over those doctors whose knowledge of plants ! 
is confined simply to the laws of life and action—the j 
physiology of the thing. 
Well, the first consequence of the harm done by the j 
frost to my young Eoses was to make them a prey to j 
myriads of greenfly; but Caiiey’s self-acting fumigator 
coming in just at the time—or coming out, as one might ! 
say, so frightened the host, that the very next thunder¬ 
storm washed them all into the Thames, and I have 
hardly seen any since. But a. much worse enemy came ; 
soon after—the little caterpillar which eats the under side 
of the leaves, and which makes the upper side look as if 
the leaf were being prepared for a collection of skeleton 
leaves. I killed hundreds of them witlx my finger and 
thumb, also beat the bush, and laid the rascals low in the 
dust, and stamped on them, aud also powdered fresh 
soot on the bushes, and so kept them from actually de¬ 
stroying every leaf in the garden, which brought me up 
to midsummer, when 1 could count how many Eoses 
died with that frost, or were so nearly dead as not to be 
worth a thought. I also learned a most useful lesson. We 
all of us put in our Eose cuttings too long by half—that | 
is, too much under ground. It Is all very well if you go ! 
on the old coaching style, put in the cuttings one autumn, 
and remove them the next, or the second-next autumn ; 
but if you put them in in August, and have to transplant ! 
them early next spring, a3 I did, it will not do to plant 
them so deep as my cuttings were put in, and the con¬ 
sequence I can now tell to my cost. 
The part of the cutting which is deep in the earth is just 
above the surface of the ground at the first transplant¬ 
ing, and is as tender as if it came out of Jamaica, as 
compared with another of the same kind of Eose which 
was never much buried as a cutting. My Eoses were of 
the strongest and sweetest Perpetuals ; and all I wanted 
them for was merely to cut Eoses for the house, and to 
prove a few kinds on their own roots, as against the same 
on the Dog and Manetti stocks ; and when the plants get 
too big for me I give them away, and so take a fresh lot 
of cuttings every year to keep up the game. After the 
first bloom is nearly over with all the perpetual Eoses, 
without exception, they make a fresh start of growth 
from the tops, or from a little below the tops where they 
have (lowered ; and I can see now quite clearly, that it is 
on the proper understanding of this part of the life of a 
young Rose that future success or failure depends. 
Begin with my own Boses—my young ones. They were 
frost-bitten, were hampered with “varmint,” bloomed 
very weakly, looked spindly the while, and made a 
start for second growth before the first bloom was over. 
How. mark my words, all the old growth below this fresh 
growth was the foundation of the future plant; and no 
matter what the kind of plant is, if the foundation of it is 
bad it will never cease to be more liable to diseases than 
one of the same kind on a healthy foundation. Eoses are 
more liable to this lot than almost any other plants. But 
take it in another light, and say the first growth is like 
the wick of a candle. Then, if the wick is bad, no matter 
how often it is dipped, or what quantity of fat is put on 
it, or of bleached wax either, it would never blaze pro¬ 
perly under a Waltonian Case; and it is just the same 
with a plant. If the first growth is bad and blistered, cut 
it down, and have a fresh start sooner than run the risk 
of a cripple for life. That was what I did with all my 
frost-bitten Eoses. After the first flower was over, and 
the fresh start for another growth had commenced, I 
headed them all down to the ground in the height of mid¬ 
summer,—a severe trial you will say. Nothing of the 
kind, but quite the reverse, and one whole season is 
gained, and a sound bottom. Next winter they would 
need to be cut down close to get rid of the same wood, 
and next year they would break just as they have done 
already, and would be no better at the end of next 
October twelvemonths than they will be this autumn. 
Eoses, like Peach trees, are liable to many mishaps in 
spring from cold, blights, and insects ; but no trees are less 
liable to have the midsummer shoots injured; and these 
are the shoots for the foundation of this batch of Eoses. 
They look remarkably well just now; and it strikes me 
that the middle of June is the best time to cut down 
closely all kinds of diseased Eoses, all sluggish climbers 
under ten years of age, aud every plant of any age which 
has the seeds of canker in its blood. That is my firm 
conviction, and I could refer to many cases in my own 
practice which would go far to prove the same thing ; only 
people do not like to write so much out of the common 
run of practice, until one here and there gets so hardened 
as not mind what “ they say ” in the slightest degree. 
Another thing is as sure as that the pen is in my hand 
—namely, that midsummer is about the best time to put 
in Eose cuttings when they are to be struck without 
glass or auything over them : that experiment I am just 
proving. I summer-pruned all my Eoses after I had put 
the frosted ones to rights. I have them on their own 
roots, and that makes them require more room than 1 
can well afford; so that I am under the necessity of 
giving them a good cutting out after the first bloom is 
over—but they pay me for it in the autumn crop. This 
time I took the short spurs under the flowers for cuttings; 
some of them not more than two inches long, and none 
quite four inches, They were put in, each kind by the 
side of the parent plant, and only one inch deep. In 
three weeks they are callosed ; and in another three weeks 
they will be rooted and fit to move. Every one of the 
Hybrid Perpetuals, Bourbons, Teas, Chinas, Noisettes, 
climbing Eoses, and a great many of the hybrid summer 
Eoses, will come that way as fast as from budding. I 
have the advantage of the Cocoa-nut fibre and refuse for 
all my cuttings ; and nothing I ever heard of is one 
quarter so good to root cuttings, and to sow seeds and 
rear seedlings in. I have not used one particle of sand 
for pot or border since I took to the fibre; and I very 
seldom use a crock in any of my small pots—only a little 
of the clean fibre without the dust instead of crocks ; and 
that fibre will last a couple of years before it will rot. 
Very many seedlings, as tender and as delicate as any 
gardener in the three kingdoms has to do with, pass 
yearly through my hands under this treatment of no 
sand or crocks. All my cuttings, and many of them more 
delicate than the Golden Chain, are done in this Cocoa- 
nut stuff, and out in the open air; but when any very 
special kind is put in, it is damped twice a-day, and a 
mat is put over it from nine or ten a.m. till four or five 
in the afternoon: that keeps all the leaves erect till roots 
come to help them. The Eose cuttings get no shading. 
There is hardly a leaf on them to hurt. Old dry leaves, 
or bleached young ones, do no good to Eose cuttings, or 
to any others, if the cuttings are not under glass or some¬ 
thing else : so I cut them off at once. 
There is a good deal of misconception about leaves to 
cuttings, which has been inoculated into the public mind 
by one or other of the doctors spoken of. Leaves are 
good to cuttings, and leaves are no good but a great evil 
to cuttings, if you can make that out; and it requires the 
practical head and hand to do them both waj T s with 
! equal success. There is no question at all about the 
i matter. When you have a close place to put in the 
cuttings, leaves will cause many kinds to root faster than 
they would without them ; but some kinds will root just 
as fast without leaves in the same close place. Out in 
the open air the case is reversed, or rather there is no 
case to put over them ; and then leaves hurt a great 
number of kinds by sucking up the last drop of sap out 
of the cuttings before they themselves are shrivelled up 
for lack of the needful supply of sap. But some sappy 
