THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 20, 1850. 
173 
The proper way to prune that Bose on its own roots 
would be to leave the longest shoot at its full length, to 
bear Boses next summer on side-shoots three-parts of its 
length from the top; to cut back the second-sized shoot 
to one-half its length, to give a few Boses in succession to 
the big shoot, and to make sure of a good, bushy growth 
for the middle of the bush ; and to cut the third and 
weakest shoot down to three or four buds, to form a 
bushy bottom, and to be the first to bloom in the autumn. 
To go over the rosery in July next; and to cut back all the 
long four-feet shoots down to two-thirds of their length, 
or below to where .they ceased to make side-shoots for 
blooming; to keep strictly to that method from year to 
year, but leaving more of the strongest shoots on each 
plant uncut as the roots get older and stronger; and 
when, at last, all the shoots are very strong, and some of 
them too strong to bloom freely, to take up the whole 
plant and divide it, or cut back all its roots and shoots 
on the docking or dwarfing system; either -way the 
roots ought to be ■well cut. Bose-i’oots should never be 
allowed to travel far from home ; for, if they do, like the 
Vine roots they soon get as bare of active fibres as wire- 
strands in a fence; and run down ,into bad subsoil, 
thus causing the growth of strong and spongy shoots 
which fail to bloom, or even ripen, but never fail to be 
attractive to a host of insects, inducing bad skin diseases, 
and rendering them as liable to frost as the tenderest of 
Tea Boses. Indeed, Tea Boses are now better under¬ 
stood than formerly, better managed in consequence, and 
much more seldom damaged by severe winters. Their 
roots, which are all their own in most cases, are kept 
nearer home by frequent transplanting; they are gene¬ 
rally thinned in their shoots after the first blow is over ; 
and the long “ robbers ” or succulent shoots they are apt 
to make in showery weather are either stopped when 
six inches long, or, if not stopped, they are cut right out 
before the winter, and a little something dry protects 
them from the frost, which is all over for the season 
before they are finally pruned ; and at that final pruning 
the greatest part of the work is in cutting out entirely 
the weakest of the growth, in thinning the rest, and in 
cutting low down frost-bitten parts. 
Three years since, next February, the last row but one 
of the ribbon-border of the Experimental Garden was 
planted with Boses a year old, from cuttings; and the 
rule was, that no Rose that is stronger than Geant des 
Batailles should be put in that row, in order to get all 
the flowers in the row into one uniform height. One 
row of dwarf Dahlias was put behind the Boses, and at 
the back came a face of varied evergreens. In front of 
the Boses the lines are annuals, a change in them, or 
some of them, being made yearly. Last year—-that is, in 
the summer of 1858, we had a Bose-tale, a Bose-rising, 
and a Rose-monopoly attempted in that one row after all 
our care,—and it was little comfort to put the blame 
either on the Bose-catalogues, or on our own heads, or 
want of brains. There they were, up and down, cross 
and sideways, with enormous blooms, but not over- 
bloomy, and anything but ribbon-like line. In the same 
soil, and under precisely similar conditions, Tom Thumbs 
and common Calceolarias were just up to the mark, and 
no more 5 but another row of seedling Geraniums, which 
is also changed for a fresh set of seedlings every year, 
was and has been from the beginning on the self-same 
footing as the Boses—up and down, broad here, lean there, 
and leggy yonder ; yet, looking at them across the border 
both they and the Boses seem as they ought to be. I 
should say that these seedlings are matched the previous 
season as near as we can judge; and as they first come 
into bloom, a doubtful flower is not admitted. It is 
the habit which spoils the row, and it is the habit which 
does the same with the Boses on one part, and the want 
of transplanting them yearly on the other part; but our 
experience extends no farther than the end of the row, 
and books and brains are both silent on the subject of 
classing Boses on their own roots. Well, that very day 
Mr. Buddock sent up his account of his Cemetery Boses 
the gardeners of the Experimental were digging up the 
strongest and second strongest Boses in that row; and 
when they heard of the farther success of that grafting, 
“ My good gracious ! if he should prune them the right 
way,” meaning the ordinary way of pruning Boses would 
give him all pillar Boses next summer, and my few-and- 
far-between Boses. “But,” said I, “why should a second 
person burn his fingers as ours have been ? Let us tell 
him all about them; let us also tell him to do with some 
of them as we are just doing with these. Plant a row 
of them at four feet apart, centre from centre, to form a 
■ hedge of pillar Boses opposite the dining-room windows.” 
“ But, man alive! they do not dine in our Cemetery at 
Kingston, they bury there, as that man did them ther 
grafts.” But, after pruning for pillar Boses, by leaving 
one or more shoots at full length ; and by cutting back 
the rest to different lengths down to three eyes from the 
soil, the opposite—the dining-roomBoses—were planted in 
two-thirds rank black clay, from the bottom of the water- 
work’s tanks or lakes, aired and frosted to pulverisation, 
and one-third rotten dung on a dry sandy bottom ; and if 
that should cause them to grow out of bounds, there is 
yet plenty of room overhead. The rest of the ribbon-row 
of Boses is removed also, and planted along with others ; 
but in a continuous row on a mixed border, to see and 
prove if they, or the like of them, can be introduced into 
the ribbon-border—that is, that so many different kinds 
of Perpetuals should grow as nearly alike as possible, in 
order to make a row as uniform as a row of Tom Thumbs. 
What I want to see on the ribbon-fashion is this : a 
broad band of Boses from three to four feet high running 
east and west in front of tall evergreens, the plants all of 
that size, and the flowers running in an harmonious shade 
from either end to the middle, and a close row of the best 
white dwarf Zelinda Dahlias immediately in front of the 
Boses ; then fancy rows and bands, as at present, with 
the walk between the sun and the ribbon. Then bring 
me the man who could not admire the effect of shading 
as represented in that row of Boses, reading it from the 
centre both ways, and I would instantly despatch him to 
York Cemetery, with a private communication to have 
him buried there as deep in proportion to his size, and to 
his lack of taste, as the Bose-grafts were by Mr. Buddock. 
But I fear the Rose-experience of the three kingdoms is 
not equal to the task of planting ten yards of such a row, as 
all the plants must be on their own roots : therefore, until 
expei’ience accumulates facts, and flowers to match and 
harmonise;, xve must be content to see rows of one, or at 
most two and three kinds of Boses in one such row. 
Geant des Batailles is the best kind I know for a sample 
plant: get twenty more kinds exactly like it in growth 
and strength, and in five shades of Bose colour, and we 
shall do. The next best Bose, if not itself the best, is 
one which Mr. Standish, of Bagshot, exhibited last summer 
at the Hanover Square Booms, and which is called Eugene 
Appert; and the next or nearest to these two in my 
notion is Bacchus. If the three should come on their 
own roots in the three degrees of big, bigger, biggest, I 
would put the last in the centre of a bed, the next outside 
it, and the first next, with a row of Mrs. Bosanquet 
between them and the gravel or grass—a splendid bed, 
but totally different to the row I anticipate. 
D. Beaton. 
HABD-FLESHED WATER MELON. 
Seeing in a recent number of The Cottage G ardener an 
article on the uses of Gourds, Pompions, and Marrows, I believe 
I possess a variety of hard-fleshed Water Melon, which, when 
used with one-third Apples, makes most delicious tarts, &c. 
As a preserve it is said to be superior to Green Gage, and is 
hardly distinguishable from moist Citron. 
Not satisfied with my own experience as to its use in tarts, &c., 
I gave one to a friend, who pronounces it delicious. The in- 
