THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 2, 1359. 
253 
own account, and will soon forget the dangers and diffi¬ 
culties about suckers, and all that sort of thing. 
I would undertake to prune half the Roses in Yorkshire, 
if more than one-half of Mr. Ruddock’s grafted Roses of 
last March are not pretty well rooted themselves by this 
time; and the rest are sure to he so before the season is out, 
because he went to work the right way. He grafted, and 
buried the grafted parts the moment he finished. It was 
just like putting in so many cuttings, with this difference, 
the sappy part of the stock kept the cuttings more in play 
till they rooted thau any compost could do, and the plan is 
far better than that of burying the worked part of a year or- 
tw'o-old worked plant. But the meaning of the move to 
get the whole of the Manetti under ground, is to get rid of 
it without knowing it; to keep your Roses in sap till they 
have time to make roots of their own. Another great ad¬ 
vantage of grafting by the fireside is this—you need never 
fear about suckers; you handle the stock, the lock, and the 
barrel, before you put on the charge, and if you see an eye 
down there, cr suspect a lurking one by the side of a scar, 
you will be sure whose fault it is, or was, if such eyes are 
not knocked out on the instant. We all must know the 
nurseryman was not in fault, for, at the rate of a few shil¬ 
lings the hundred Manetti stocks, he could not get broad 
and cheese out of them if he disbudded his cuttings in the 
first instance. 
I recollect in the year 1834 or 1835, one of the largest 
and most respectable nurserymen on the Continent sending 
over word to this country that the roots of the common 
large China Rose were, or were then, the best stock in the 
world for grafting Roses on. He took them of the size of 
a pen-holder, cut them into six-inch lengths any time in 
the winter, and grafted them in-doors in bad weather. He 
made one remark which particularly struck me at the time. 
He said the roots of that China Bose, at the age and size he 
used them, were less given to make suckers thau the roots 
of any Rose he knew. What struck me was, whether that 
Rose was naturally less given to suckering, or whether it 
was not rather from his using them so young, as root- 
eyes were not yet formed on them. I recollect setting this 
down for a lawful experiment; hut the thing went over¬ 
board in troubled waters, and remained there till it was 
fished up cleverly last week by the manager of the Yorkshire 
Cemetery. But who will prove the fact now ? Smith’s 
Yelloio Noisette Rose was then selliug at half a guinea the 
inch, and every inch was grafted on the roots of all kinds 
of Roses. D. Beaton. 
WEEDS AND THEIR EXTIRPATION. 
One thing still remains of an unworthy character, as 
pertaining to some British gardens ; rank weeds are still 
suffered to deface many from which batter things might 
be hoped. It seems strange to enter any garden about 
which we have heard much, and from which, by con¬ 
sequence, much is expected where enormous sums have 
been expended in carrying out the mechanical portion 
of the art, and to observe that there is not that deadly 
hatred of weeds which should exist in the heart of everv 
true gardener. But is it simply a gardener’s affair ? I 
have known numbers of gardeners during the last fifty 
years ; and out of the whole, counting them as real pro¬ 
fessionals, I cannot remember a dozen who really wished 
to indulge in the revelry of weeds. Their extirpation, of 
course, Involves labour; but labour ought to be had, 
fairly commensurate with the object in hand, or why 
attempt gardening? 
But when an employer grants a due amount of that 
necessary aid, he has a perfect right to expect that 
the gardener should call every economic practice into 
action, and so to lay his plans as to turn all labour’ 
to the best account. Indeed, where much labour is con¬ 
cerned, the possession of good administrative powers 
constitutes nearly one-half of the gardener’s aptitude 
and talents. 
As to the effects produced by weeds, let us examine 
them. Who will deny that they exhaust the soil ? What 
will produce a group of strong-growing w T eeds would 
produce bouncing Cabbages. But this is not all: they 
injuriously shade crops, and cramp them of their legiti¬ 
mate boundary ; and this is not such a light affair as 
some would seem to imagine. If airy one doubts as to 
the weight attached to such considerations, let him, 
when he places his fancy Geraniums or other flowers or 
plants on the stage or shelf, place some rude-growing- 
things amongst them, and let them elbow it out, and 
observe the results. 
There are several ways of attacking these pestilential 
scoundrels, such as hoeing, hand-weeding, salting, digging, 
and, perhaps, another mode or two ; and of these I wish 
to speak. We all know that most gardening operations 
depend on the weather, at least out-door gardening. 
Here we stand on a similar footing to farmers, only our 
little affairs are more highly sublimated. 
In hoeing those on the lighter soils, people frequently 
prefer the Dutch hoe, and in many such cases it deserves 
precedence ; but on stronger soils it is scarcely able to 
compete with the draw hoe. There is, however, always 
this difference, that the Dutch hoe leaves its work un¬ 
trodden : not so the draw hoe. But hoeing, after all, is 
but a flattering process under ordinary conditions of the 
atmosphere. In fact, in three-fourths of the cases we 
have seen it is only a modification of the ordinary mode of 
transplanting. Eor my part, I consider the rake own 
cousin to the hoe ; or rather the hoe should play jackal, 
and the rake lion. In most cases, I advise the rake 
devouring what the hoe has disturbed; for, indeed, it is 
not merely scratching away weeds, but, under judicious 
management, a kind of second hoeing,—a disturber. 
But we have, in this case, enemies of different habits to 
deal with ; there are temporary weeds, and there are 
those which are of such a perennial and enduring habit, 
that they require a pertinacious opposition to keep them 
at bay, not to say entirely extirpate them. We cannot 
for a moment think of placing a Groundsel, a Ckickweed, 
a Shepherd’s Burse, or a Dandelion, on the same footing 
as Couch and the old Convolvulus arvensis, or Bear-bind. 
These latter foes are, some of them, of a very enduring 
character. 
We must remember that our English summers are of 
a fluctuating character, and that our policies must be 
shaped accordingly.. It is of little use hoeing in moist 
weather ; and if one of those dull and damp periods over¬ 
take us, the best way is to have recourse to the spade. 
This has been my practioe for years, and I know by ex¬ 
perience that it requires but little more time to “ point 
in ” the weeds than to hoe and rake them; which in such 
periods is apt to be a dawdling process. I have found it 
of immense benefit to the soil,- and this, together with 
deep trenching of every plot about once in three years, 
has quite renewed our old and hard-worked kitchen 
garden ; which, about a dozen years since, had begun to 
assume the appearance termed “worn out.” Eut, then, 
let it be taken into consideration what an insect-destroy¬ 
ing process it is; those who will pursue such a course 
of practice will not long complain of slugs. I before 
adverted to those pertinacious intruders called Couch 
and Bear-bind: not many gardens are infested with these, 
but I must confess to an occasional irruption from the 
latter, and have found it difficult to eradicate. Of course, 
if any one can fork out every root there is an end of it 
at once; but I have never seen this thoroughly carried 
out: every little morsel will grow if clipped into frac¬ 
tions. But it is not so difficult to eradicate it by what 
I may term a bleeding process. Most persons are aware 
that the Bear-bind, on being wounded, emits a milky 
fluid; and this wounding, repeated during two seasons,, 
at last wears out the root. 
As for Couch Grass, we have to depend in the main on 
carefully forking it out during the rest period; every 
